


A Soul Awake

by Tabi_essentially



Series: Wartime verse [1]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Abduction, Badass, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-14
Updated: 2012-02-14
Packaged: 2017-10-31 06:10:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/340818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabi_essentially/pseuds/Tabi_essentially
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pre-movie: With mega-corp SomniCore attempting to regulate the world of dreaming, the Cobbs, still under the corporation's yoke, seek the help of a rogue, freelance forger to shake things up. Eames is the best there is; they know because their point man, Arthur, has tracked him for years. The point man and the forger put aside their years of quiet rivalry to work for a common cause: free the world of dreaming from the fist of the corporation, and protect the Cobbs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My first shaky attempt at building a 'verse. I'm slightly embarrassed by this, to be honest! This fic became massively h/c, having been based on many different prompts on the kink-meme including voice-kink and temporary blindness.

It was only a matter of time before SomniCore outlawed dreaming outside of their realm. Every month new laws were passed about who could dream and where, what technology was allowed and who could use it, and specifically, they held all of the compounds in their tight, massive fist. They were squeezing the life out of dreaming.

And they were hunting down illegal dreamers. Eames thought it was only a matter of time until they caught up with his ass.

There was some outcry from the biggest names, but most of them had been silenced. Or had died, which, of course, SomniCore claimed to have no hand in. The Cobbs, however, were perhaps too conspicuous to be silenced. Yet, anyway.

Word was, the Cobbs were looking for a forger. Eames never missed any words, and was not one to let opportunity pass by. SomniCore was up the ass of nearly every dreamer out there, but the Cobbs had spirit. And they did not do their work underground, like he did. They had power.

The Cobbs worked for National Dream Security, which was not something you wanted to take lightly. Eames's background might not have been the most spotless-est, but in the underground world of dreaming, everyone knew his (fake) name. No one could forge like Mr. Eames. He could forge God to the Pope, they said. So it was with confidence that he made the appointment to meet with Mr. and Mrs. Cobb.

Waiting was hungry work, and he found his way into the Bonjour Rapide for a sandwich. As he sat, he took in, not so much his surroundings, but the people who populated it. 

Behind the counter stood a girl in an apron. Her chocolate hair was pulled into a loose ponytail at the back of her head. A smattering of freckles peppered her cute nose. Eames approached, and took note of her smile. Then he matched it. She shifted forward to hear his order; he mirrored her. Her name-tag read "Keri." Her accent read Manchester as she took his order. Eames copied it as he answered. She dipped her eyelashes, a slow blink, comfortable and flirtatious. He did the same.

Then he sat down to wait.

A university boy came in, an upperclassman, obviously. Full lips, light hair, confident set to the shoulders. His forearms said "rower" and he purposely flexed his hands with every gesture. Eames set his shoulders the same way, copied the mannerism easily. The kid smelled of old money, like a pheromone. He memorized it for future reference. "Robert," he named this guy, or maybe Nicholas, perhaps. Maybe even a Henry. Something subtle yet classic.

A girl sat alone, reading a thick book. It was early spring, but she wore at least three scarves. A bottle ginger, eyebrows a shade darker, with pale makeup applied carefully, subtly. She glanced up a lot, each time the door opened. Looking for a boy. Eames pegged her right away as a USA gal overseas for the first time. Didn't even need to hear her speak: her clothes, the tone of her being, all screamed "America." Forth generation Italian, he thought, from the dark roots of her hair and curve of her mouth. He stored away into his mind the color of her cheek, the carefully applied English Rose complexion, the fidgeting fingers. "Dara," he thought. Or "Catherine," probably "Cathy" to her family, but she would hate that. Catherine was so much more Euro.

Keri brought Eames his sandwich as the door opened again, this time to admit another, younger boy. Likely a first year; this kid could not be a day over 17. With dark slacks and a sweater vest over a smart shirt, loose waves of dark hair, and an interesting shape to his eyes that almost made Eames think Pacific Islander for a fraction of a second before he decided, _No, English all the way. Oxford Boy._ Jailbait as cute as they come. Keri smiled at him. The boy smiled back. Eames memorized the dimples. _Edward, Charles, Arthur, Harold or William._ And clearly his last name ended in -ington, -shire, -ford, -moore or -win. But he'd put money on -ington. Edward Worthington, or something.

Edward Worthington ordered a salad and Eames watched him eat it as he devoured his sandwich. 

Then he left a tip for Keri and left to wander the town for a short while before heading to meet the Cobbs.

 

** ** ** 

Eames arrived at the McDonald Randolph slightly ahead of schedule and sat at the bar for a while. He watched. Observed. Copied. Mirrored. It was second nature; he couldn't help it. Did it obsessively, perhaps.

He glanced at his watch. It was getting toward 4PM. Eames was not nervous. Nothing rode on this. He could dream anywhere, if he wanted to; everyone wanted to work with him.

Finally he went to the concierge and asked the old, stern gentleman, "National Dream Security meeting?"

The man's eyebrows drew together and his chin rose. "Ashmolean Suite, first level," the man's mouth said, while his eyes said, "Fuck off, chav."

"Thank you," Eames said with a satisfied smile. "Have a lovely day, sir."

Then he took the lift up, checked that his shirt was tucked in, and knocked on the door.

A stunningly beautiful woman greeted him. Long, soft waves of dark hair cascaded over her shoulders. Her smiling lips were full, her eyes blue. Eames felt himself melt a little.

"Mr. Eames, I think?" she asked, pulling the door open wider and gesturing for him to enter. God, and she was _French._

"Yes. Thank you." He mentally berated himself for sounding as smitten as he was. He was supposed to be smoother than that. 

"I'm Mal Cobb, please come inside."

So this was Mrs. Cobb - Eames could only wonder what Mr. Cobb looked like, or maybe he just had money coming out of his ass.

The suite was smaller than he expected; it could seat no more than six people. Eames hadn't figured on this being such an intimate affair; not with so many applicants.

An older gentleman peered around the corner of the hall as Eames came into the room. His hair was a distinguished white. "Is that one of the forgers, my darling?" the man asked. He was English. He joined the woman and slipped his arm around her waist.

_Revolting,_ Eames thought, as he smiled at them both. He held his hand out to the man. "I'm Thomas Eames," he said. _You old lech,_ he did not add.

"Miles," the man said. "And you've met my daughter Mal."

"Oh, yes I have." Eames shook his hand, relieved.

"Dom, it's a forger," Mal called into the room.

Mr. Cobb himself emerged from around the corner of the room, and Eames was utterly unsurprised that he was also stunning, with full, light hair and absurdly beautiful eyes. Eames decided he would not object to being the center of a Cobb sandwich.

"Ah, Mr. Eames," Cobb said, holding out his hand. His grip was firm and confident, enthusiastic. "We've heard so much about you."

"Is that so?" Eames said. 

"Does it surprise you?" The older man—Miles—asked.

"I'm not exactly out of DreamTech, you know."

Dominic Cobb shrugged, and his wife grinned. "I don't care where you learned what you can do," Cobb said. "Only that you learned it."

Eames smiled. The best forgers in the world never came out of DreamTech. Security, extractors, teachers, architects, sure. But a decent forger was born, not made.

"So I don't exactly have a resume, you might've guessed," Eames said.

"You do have one," Cobb said, flashing a devastating grin. "It's just not on paper. Why don't we sit down, have a bite to eat and talk about our dreams?"

"I'll go and fetch Arthur," Mal said. She turned to Eames. "He's our point man and occasional architect," she explained. 

"Both?" Eames asked. "Point work is exhausting."

"Arthur is very special," Mal said.

"He does a little of everything," Dom said. 

"Oh? Can he forge?" Eames asked.

"A bit," Cobb answered, as Mal left the room. "But forging is a calling. Isn't it? And our man isn't called to it."

"He is exceptional at what he does," Miles said, taking a seat. "As we've heard that you are, Mr. Eames."

"Yes," Eames said. No use in being disingenuous about it. "I'm wondering, actually, why I'm the only one here. I thought there'd be hundreds."

"There were," Cobb said. "But we like to meet people one at a time. Have a pastry?" He held out a plate. 

"And do take some tea," Miles said, filling his cup with steaming water.

Eames helped himself to a fluffy pastry with cream filling. "May I ask why security needs a forger? Forging seems rather... Well, the needs of a security team seem too straightforward to require something so..." He stopped, took a sip of tea.

"Underhanded?" Cobb said. He smiled to offset the word. "A lot of people think so, but I disagree. Forging isn't necessarily lying or tricking someone. The subconscious sometimes needs to be shown certain things. When we go in as a team, the mark is always told who's doing what."

"But it's different when they go under, and they're not trained to remember what they were told," Eames said.

"They sign a waiver."

"Well that keeps it legal. But."

"But not moral, Mr. Eames?" Miles asked. "But you yourself are a forger."

"I'm not asking out of my own sense of morality."

Before Miles could answer, Mal returned with the point man. Eames's eyes were drawn to her, and at first he nearly missed the young man she pulled along beside her, arm in arm. After looking his fill at her, he looked at the point man.

_Edward Charles Harold Worthingtonfordshiremoore!_

"Mr. Eames, this is Arthur."

Eames stood up and held out his hand to the boy—the _boy_ , whom he'd assumed to be about seventeen years of age. This was their exceptional point man? A small-built, pale thing who looked like he still had milk on his tongue? "I saw you at the cafe," he said. 

"Yeah, that's right," the kid said, utterly American. "You had a sandwich." He shook Arthur's hand; firm, chilly, dry. He had changed clothes and now wore a different sweater vest, with a tie tucked into it. He carried a canvas messenger bag over one shoulder, the strap long so it hung low. The top flapped open. _Careless._

"I did. I thought you were an Oxford man."

"Stony Brook, physics," he said.

Mal added, "And DreamTech."

Eames released the young man's hand; eyebrows raised. "I'm sorry; I'd assumed you to be much younger than you are. You're a graduate?"

"Arthur is twenty four," Mal said. "And has graduated with many degrees and much honor."

Arthur smiled, a little shy, at Mal Cobb's indulgent gushing. Eames studied his eyes and still thought that there was something exotic about them. He didn't quite look English or American or really any one thing.

"He is the best there is," Dom added, as if he sensed Eames's dubiousness.

"Well, I'm pleased to meet you," Eames said. And one thing he did not need to be told: The Cobbs doted on this kid. Likely his opinion would weigh massively on who they ended up taking into their ridiculously attractive team.

"The same, Mr. Eames. I've heard you're the best there is, too."

"Well, I'm flattered."

"And let's get down to business, shall we?" Miles said. "I'd like to schedule a time for us all to go under together, but not today since we've all already eaten."

"Is that normally a problem?" Eames asked. 

Miles raised his eyebrows. "Have you not had any reactions to sedatives? No anesthesia sickness, no vomiting?"

Eames thought back. Maybe he had, a bit at first, but had long since gotten used to it. "Not for a good many years." He took a sip of tea, which was turning lukewarm.

"Poor Arthur can't do it on a full stomach," Mal said, as she pet Arthur's arm. "None of us can, actually, and really it's not very good for one anyway."

"So, Mr. Eames," Cobb said, leaning forward in his chair a bit. He fixed Eames with an intense stare, and though he was still smiling, suddenly he was all business. "In light of your last question about why we need a forger, may I ask why you were drawn to security? Dreaming's a game for most people, entertainment for some, and of course there's a darker aspect to it, too. What made you come here today?"

Eames knew there was no room for dishonesty among dreamers if they were to work together. Dishonesty while working apart, yes, of course – Eames lived by that. But with an extractor like Cobb in the room, anything but the truth would be pointless and insulting.

"I'm not drawn to security," he said. "What brought me here today was you. Both of you." He looked at Miles, and then at Arthur. "All of you. You're the best dreamers there are. And I love the work. In all honesty, I want to see what you can do, perhaps as much as you want to see what I can do. Maybe more."

"You're in it for the thrill of the dream?" Miles asked.

Eames frowned. "Yes, of course. None of us would be sitting here if it wasn't for that. Going under, creating, being in control. Flight. Creation, yeah?" 

He finished his cup of tea and set it down. When he looked at Mal, her eyes were gleaming. And Cobb, he was smiling a small, satisfied smile.

Arthur just stared at him, his head tilted to one side, as if trying politely to figure something out.

"SomniCore hasn't got their finger on you, that's for certain," Miles said. Then, with an air of satisfaction, "And we don't wish to waste your time, Mr. Eames. If you find you are still interested in our team, come back here tomorrow morning at 7 AM. Don't have breakfast. And we'll do a test run. Is that all right with you?"

The tingle of pre-dream excitement filled him. He'd starve the whole day and get up at 4 AM if it meant going under with the Cobbs. The Cobbs and their polite, youthful, intriguing point man. "That sounds fine."

"I'll clean up," Arthur said, and began piling plates and Eames's tea cup onto a tray.

"Darling, the staff will..." Mal began.

"I've got it," Arthur said. "Mr. Eames, a pleasure to meet you. Tomorrow morning, then?"

Eames rose, with a nod. So did the Cobbs, and Miles. 

Everyone was shuffling around, Dom picking up a briefcase, Mal fussing over Arthur who was fussing over straightening up the table. And when Arthur had his back turned—Eames would never know exactly why he did it—he reached into Arthur's messenger bag and plucked out the first thing his hand landed on. An MP3 player, it felt like. He pocketed it.

"First thing tomorrow, then," Dom said. He shook hands with Eames once more and looked him in the eye. 

And Eames figured this was a sure bet.

 

* ** ** ** **

Arthur sat behind his computer, illuminated by its glow. How easy it had been to lift fingerprints from the teacup that had been used by Mr. Thomas Eames – or rather, Evan Eldridge. Or William Alistair. And then call in a favor to an old, trusted friend, to ID those prints, just to be certain. Arthur's connection went all the way back to his high school days, and had never failed him.

And, yes. As it turned out, Thomas Eames was exactly who Arthur thought he was. He'd tracked this man before.

Mr. Eames's real name was Luke Bishop. But 'Mr. Eames' suited Arthur just fine. What were names, after all? What concerned Arthur was what people did, who they were; not what they were called.

And after finding out who he was, how simple it had been to go back over all of his old information. (He hadn't lied when he said he'd studied physics. He had. Tons of it. Passionately. And two years of DreamTech had been a breeze. But that didn't mean he didn't have other, more important and useful skills.)

Luke Bishop...Mr. Eames... was a first class criminal, and had always been first-class, there was no doubt about that. Arthur took off his reading glasses and sat back, letting his focus go distant. The computer screen blurred. He could get a pretty good reading of Eames just by glancing at the records he accumulated. His image came together; the life of the man came into focus. His history didn't show out of control violence, but he had been involved in altercations. Mostly he was a thief who had gotten himself into a few rough situations. That was to be expected. As was the name change. 

He had no connections to SomniCore, outside of SomniCore's interest in his activities, and he didn't strike Arthur as a bad person. And unless his reading of him was wildly off, he didn't seem too unpredictable either. 

Still. This guy was applying to work with Dom and Mal. He had to know why, all of a sudden.

And nothing explained why Eames had taken his phone. Maybe he really _was_ an out of control thief, and Arthur's intuition was wrong.

He needed to find out.

He glanced at the clock. It was 2 AM. They all had to get up early tomorrow, and the dreams they'd be sharing would provide no rest. Still. This couldn't wait.

Arthur Googled the hotel that Mr. Eames was staying at. A little hacking and he had downloaded the layout. Eames was on the fifth floor and had a balcony. Good.

He put on a pair of black sweatpants, and a black hoodie. Black sneakers and gloves. Tucked his glasses into a slim black case along with a lockpick and a switchblade. 

He locked the hotel door behind him and set out into the night, on foot.

* * * ** **

Eames lay in his hotel bed, the telly on with the volume down low, the BBC offering him nothing new or of interest. Instead he focused his attention on the phone he'd lifted from Arthur, turning it over and over his hand. He turned it on and slid the bar to unlock. It didn't ask for a password, even.

His wallpaper was standard; the one that came with the phone. He hadn't bothered changing it. 

_Boring._

_A.Arceneau@nds.net_ was his email address. This kid had a lot of nerve being French. Eames thought of his dark eyes and still couldn't quite wrap his brain around it. He pictured Arthur's chilly fingers tip-tapping across the screen, of his fingerprints all over it. 

He tried to go into the email folder, and found that did require a password. He didn't bother. Instead he went into the music files, which he thought much more important than email contacts anyway.

_Consolidated, Converge, Coltrane, Edith Piaf..._ Predictable also that this Arthur Arceneau of the Sweater Vest would have a jazz playlist and one simply called _Music to chill by._ He flipped through the names. _Dinah Washington, Cohen..._ A playlist simply called _Driving._ Eames opened it. _Rachmaninoff, E.S. Posthumous... Ludo? Megadeth?_

He smiled, trying to picture Arthur at a metal concert. If he got him out of the sweater vest and into jeans and a plain shirt, it wasn't too hard to imagine. He liked that Arthur, actually.

Yes, tonight, when he dreamed, he would dream up Arthur.

He checked the time on the phone. 2 AM. Tomorrow was an early day, and here he was wasting precious sleeping time looking through this guy's mp3s. Well. Tomorrow he would just slip the phone back into Arthur's froofy purse. The kid would be relieved to have found it. Maybe it had slipped to the bottom of the bag, or maybe he'd put it into the wrong pocket. Eames had quick hands; no one had ever caught him lifting, not unless someone else had given him up.

He shut off the TV, put Arthur's phone on the stand by the bed, and began to easily fall asleep. 

He awoke just as easily, fifty three minutes later, at the tiny sound of a window sliding open.

* * * * *

Arthur slipped into the window, pocketing the lockpick, and silently unfolded himself from a crouched position.

The hotel room was dark, and the bedroom was set away from the sitting room. The entire room was fairly upscale. Eames was a thief, but he wasn't a shabby one. He must have done well for himself.

Arthur pressed his back to the wall, in the shadows cast around the room by the lights from the street below.

He eased himself over to the bedroom door, which stood slightly open. He didn't dare open it any further. He peered inside the room, ready to pull back at the slightest sound. 

By the light from the digital bedside clock, he saw Mr. Eames lying there, blanket pulled up to his chin. He lay on his side, a slight curl to his lips even in sleep. 

And on the bedside table was Arthur's goddamn _phone._ Just sitting right there, as if Mr. Eames had been playing around with it.

Well. Arthur was still sure he knew more about Eames than Eames did about him.

Satisfied—for now—he crept away from the bedroom door and into the kitchenette. The coffee-maker sat untouched on the counter. The entire kitchenette was tidy, unused. Of course, Eames had eaten at the cafe, where Arthur had first seen him. The bar remained locked, fully stocked with liquor. At least Eames was taking the interview seriously. And taking the Cobbs seriously, he guessed.

The hotel computer was still on, though asleep. Arthur walked to stand in front of it, shielding the screen with his body, so that it wouldn't glare into the slightly-open bedroom door. He shook the mouse to wake it. Opened the web browser and looked at the history.

Eames had looked up cafes in Oxford town. He hadn't Googled the Cobbs. Maybe he already knew whatever he wanted to know about them?

Arthur kept flipping through the browser history.

A Google search turned up with the phrase _"dreamtech degree"_ followed by _"dreamtech degree" how long_. Arthur raised his eyebrows. 

Following that, _"Stonybrooke"_ and then _"stony brook"_ and then _"stony brook" physics_. Eames had then visited the university's website and had a look around at the campus. 

_Are you fucking kidding me?_ Eames had been Googling _him_? What the hell did this guy mean by stealing his phone and then...

Arthur drew in a silent breath and went perfectly still when he felt the chill of cold metal pressed to the back of his neck.

"What are you doing here, Arthur?"

* * * * * * *

Eames waited until Arthur had had his fill of peeking into the bedroom before he slipped out of the bed. He watched Arthur from the doorway as he searched around the hotel room. Watched him as he looked in the kitchenette, checked the liquor cabinet, and went over to the computer. Eames didn't know if he was alarmed or amused by the prospect of Arthur looking at his browser history.

Amused, he finally decided.

Who did this kid think he was, anyway? Spiderman, climbing up the balconies like that? In his stupid black sweatpants? And how had he gotten through the goddamn locked window?

_Point man. Ah._ All at once, it came together. He may have been the Cobbs' point man, but he did work directly for SomniCore. Eames realized he was looking at the man who had tracked him for years. That vague SomniCore presence that always seemed to breathe down his back. A hack into his computer here. A stolen file there. It was him. It was Arthur.

Eames cast about the room for something suitable to startle Arthur, who was now leaning over the computer desk going through the history. He settled on his own mp3 charger, the one that plugged into a car outlet. He didn't make a sound as he slid up behind Arthur and pressed the round, metal plug to the back of his neck.

"What are you doing here, Arthur?" he asked.

To Arthur's credit, he didn't jump. He just went entirely still – calm, maybe, although Eames couldn't see his face.

"I could disarm you," Arthur finally said, "if I thought that was a real gun." But he remained bent over, as if waiting for permission to straighten up.

Eames chuckled and put the charger down. Arthur turned around. His dark eyes were hooded and unreadable. A startling difference from the "aww shucks Mrs. Cobb" boy he'd seen earlier.

How to bell this cat?

"Why did you take my phone, Mr. Eames?" 

"I thought it was an mp3 player. Why did you take my teacup this afternoon?"

"I wanted to lift your fingerprints and run them. What would you want with an mp3 player? It's not even expensive."

"I didn't take it for that," Eames said. "I wanted to see what kind of music you liked. Why did you want my fingerprints?"

"To see what sort of criminal you were," Arthur answered. "; I had an idea of who you were, and I was right. You could have just asked me what kind of music I liked."

"You could have asked me what sort of criminal I am. Would you have told me about Megadeth?"

Arthur shrugged, but smiled a little. "Does it matter?"

Eames flopped into the cushy chair across from the computer desk. "What kind of criminal am I, Mr. Arceneau? Since you've followed me for so long."

Arthur leaned back against the desk, his palms braced against it. "A predictable one."

Eames raised his eyebrows. "Predictable? Okay – that hurts."

"No, I don't mean it in a bad way. You just aren't out of control. We dream together. I needed to know you weren't violent or insane."

"Did I pass inspection?"

"That's not up to me."

"Ahh, the attractive Cobbs."

Arthur frowned slightly at the suggestion, then decided to ignore it. "Mal's the boss. Her word is final. Look, Mr. Eames. It's not a big secret that you've gone directly against NDS in the past. I mean, you took legitimate work from us. I need to do my job. Why are you looking to work with us now? I need a little honesty. You'd be selling out the people you worked for in the past. Our rivals."

Eames regarded him silently, looking for a trace of deceit. He discovered that he couldn't find one. The kid wasn't guileless, but he was being very clear. "Well, loyalties can shift," Eames said.

"Mine won't, when it comes to the Cobbs. Not ever."

He had to smile at that. "No, I suppose they won't." Eames sighed and glanced at the clock. Damn, he had to be up soon. "Listen, Mr. Arceneau..."

"I've just broken into your room. Arthur is fine."

"Then, Arthur. It's too late for you to be heading back to your hotel. I suggest we both get some sleep. Please take the sofa?"

"I'll be fine getting home."

"Yes, you're not going to get mugged or anything," Eames said, indulging him. "But you may as well stay. We've only got a few hours anyway."

"I don't have any clothes."

"I'm assuming you're at the MacDonald Randolph. Just get dressed tomorrow before the final interview. Do stay, Arthur. You're already put me on edge by breaking into my hotel room through a goddamn fifth storey window."

That earned him a small upwards twitch of Arthur's already naturally upturned mouth. "Don't steal any of my phones again."

"'Any of?' Dare I even ask how many you've got?"

"A few. But only one with my real name and email, Mr. Eames, and that one is not in your possession. All right, I'll stay." He pushed himself off the desk he'd been leaning on and stretched the smooth lines of his body taut.

"And your real musical tastes?" Eames asked, moving aside so Arthur could sit on the sofa.

"No, I really do like Megadeth," he said.

"Ah, good. I'm glad. Care for a cup of tea?"

"Thanks, but no. Wish I could." Arthur sat back on the sofa, at ease. "I can't eat or drink before going under."

"Not sure how I feel about this compound."

"I'm not sure how I feel about it, either," Arthur said. His voice had gone slightly darker, and he looked away from Eames. "Thanks for the sofa, Mr. Eames. I appreciate it." 

"Least I could do after lifting your phone. You'd make a good thief yourself, you know."

"I do know," Arthur said. And didn't expand on that. Then he laughed quietly. "Sofa," he said. "Eames. Like the furniture."

"You're tired," Eames said. He struggled to resist patting Arthur's hair. "I'll get you a blanket and pillow. Fluffy or firm?" Eames guessed firm, for this spare, unyeilding point man.

"Firm, please," Arthur said, yawning.

_I really am the best there is,_ Eames thought, satisfied.

 

* ** ** ** **

Eames didn't like the whole needle thing, but it was a necessary part of the procedure. And with Mrs. Cobb so lovingly and sweetly slipping the needles into her husband's and Arthur's wrists, Eames didn't find the prospect quite so ugly. He smiled when she came to him.

"Aren't you going under with us?" he asked her.

Her smile broadened. "I can't, Mr. Eames. Not for quite some months." She glanced over her shoulder at Mr. Cobb, who practically lit up when he looked at her. He glanced at Arthur, who looked politely away.

"That explains at least some of the radiance," Eames said. "Congratulations."

"Thank you, Mr. Eames," she said. He barely felt her slip the needle in.

"Are you going to be architect, Arthur?" Eames asked.

"Nope, not today. Today we're just doing raw dream space. Easier to see how you work. You're going to build the dream."

"Me?"

"Just let the images come naturally," Mal said, and depressed the button.

Eames didn't have time to respond.

He opened his eyes to a beach. 

"Nice setting," Cobb said, smiling. He glanced down at Eames's ridiculous shorts. "Your subconscious needs a vacation, I guess."

"Apparently so. I can do with less rain, sometimes." He looked around for Arthur, who showed up soon enough in a three piece suit, minus shoes and socks.

A handful of Eames's projections jogged by; the girl looked at Arthur, glanced at his bare feet. Took in the rest of his attire and giggled.

"Honestly?" Arthur asked.

"Hope you all brought sunscreen," Cobb said. "All right, then. This is neutral enough and your subconscious seems comfortable." He looked out over the horizon of Eames's dream. A pirate ship floated there in the distance.

Eames shrugged. "I watch a lot of movies."

"That's all right," Cobb said. "So, for the moment let's start simple. Can we just see a random character?"

And Jack Sparrow stood staring back at Cobb. Eames knew it was spot on; he loved forging Captain Jack Sparrow. Did it for laughs a lot of the time.

Cobb smiled, indulgent but not yet impressed. "Funny. But, one of your own making, maybe?"

A pigmy now gazed up at Cobb. "Would you prefer a female?" Eames asked, and easily shifted into a tall blonde. "All the details are here," said his light, American accented voice. "How about a gypsy?" _shift_ "An old man?" _shift_ "An infant?" _shift_ "A viking." _shift_

"Okay, I...wow. Yes, that'll do, Mr. Eames." Cobb stared at him, wide-eyed. "You're quick, I'll give you that. I've never seen faster changing." He looked to Arthur as if for confirmation of this fact. Eames looked at him, too. He was happy to see Arthur give a short nod.

"Speed is essential; you've got that. The other aspects we're looking for are details and endurance. I'd like to see you forge someone already in existence."

"May I do Arthur?" Eames tried not to grin as he said it.

Cobb looked to Arthur for his permission.

The point man shielded his eyes from the sun and came a few steps closer. He looked amused, curious. "Sure, I guess that'd be all right. Let's see."

Eames was certain they expected an exact copy of the Arthur that stood before them now. But that would be predictable, and Eames prided himself on being more creative than that. Imagination was his strongest suit. He knew—had always known—it was what made him the best.

The Arthur that he became wasn't the put-together point man he'd seen so briefly over the last two days. Instead, he forged what he thought Arthur might have been like before the dreams. Hell, what he _knew_ he had been like. Arthur may have been the point man, who learned secrets; but Eames was a forger, who knew them intuitively.

He watched their faces as they stared at the boy he became: slight, with dark curls that fell into his face and sometimes over the tops of his wire-rimmed glasses. Bluejeans and a t shirt (he chose Megadeth,) with a dark hoodie over it. He forged slatted, suspicious eyes behind the glasses, with that indefinable quality to them that had at first made Eames think "Pacific Islander" and the air of superiority that had made him think "English to the core." He curved Arthur's lips upward slightly. Pulled his shoulders in and shoved his hands into his pockets.

As Cobb and Arthur watched, Eames searched a little deeper – into himself, into Arthur who was sharing the dream, and found something he'd missed about him at first: some secret loss. It changed the angle of his shoulders, dropped his eyelids down a little. The smile didn't come as easily.

"Amazing," Cobb said. 

Eames looked at Arthur, whose face had become unreadable once again. He feared that he had gone too far; that he had revealed something private about Arthur, or maybe stolen something from him that was worth much more than his stupid phone.

And then the world began rocking.

"We're on a boat," Arthur said. "Mr. Eames?"

"Eh?" Eames drifted out of the Arthur-copy, shifting back into himself. He looked around. He, Cobb and Arthur now all stood on the deck of a ship. Why the _hell_ was he now dreaming of a ship? It rocked, tossed on the sea. He felt dizzy. 

He tried to shift back into someone else, anyone. For a moment he became part Arthur, part Dom Cobb. Shifted to Mal. Jack Sparrow again. He could feel his edges melting, the images flying apart.

Suddenly, this was going very badly.

Arthur looked pale. Eames felt like he did, too.

"I'm sorry about this. I don't know why we're on a boat. And I don't know why I can't..."

"I do," Cobb said. "It happens sometimes. It's the sedative. Probably having a bad effect on your equilibrium."

"I've never had that problem before."

Arthur gripped the railing, his lips pressed together. And then, to Eames's shock and utter horror, he pulled a gun from his suit and shot himself in the head. 

"What the fuck?!" 

"Relax," Cobb said. "He just woke himself up. Give him a second and he'll get us out."

"But there are other ways..."

"There are, but Arthur likes to be direct."

A wave the size of a city block surged up and swept over the ship. The vessel pitched and capsized, tossing Eames over the edge. He felt his gorge rise as his body plunged toward the water. 

He thought, _These people are fucking insane_ , and then he leapt up out of the lawn chair.

* * * * 

Arthur breathed deeply, in through the nose and out through the mouth.

"Darling, did it go badly?" Mal asked, placing her hand on his arm. "Or did you feel ill again?"

"I'm fine," he said. "Mr. Eames is feeling sick. I have to kick him." He got up, steadied himself, and went over to Eames's chair. He just watched him for a second; studied his pale face, lips nearly white. Felt pity and commiseration. Then he placed his hands on his chest to give him a shove.

"Poor dears," Mal said, as she pitched Dom over, with the same amusement she always seemed to have when she gave him a kick.

Eames righted himself before hitting the ground. And then he immediately jumped out of the chair, his hand over his mouth.

"Bathroom," Arthur said, pointing in the direction.

Eames wasted no further time running into the bathroom and puking his insides out. Arthur held his breath, feeling like he might be next.

"We need different compounds," Dom said. His fist clenched by his side, his frustration with SomniCore surfacing.

"But how did Mr. Eames do?" Mal asked.

"He's fantastic," Dom said. "Quick as hell, detailed and intuitive." He glanced at Arthur, who looked away quickly. 

_Yeah, yeah, Luke Bishop and his unbeatable, legendary team._

"Arthur," Dom said, maybe a hint of exasperation in his voice. "It's no wonder he got all the work he did. He really is the best. You saw that, right?"

"Yes, what did you make of him, pet?" Mal asked.

He shrugged. "Yeah, I mean, just like Dom said. He's...he's really good. It's a shame the compound makes him even sicker than I get."

She took a cold bottle of sparkling water out of an ice bucket and handed it to him. "Why not bring this to Mr. Eames?" 

"Me? How come? Maybe he wants to be left alone."

"Knock on the door and see if he'd like water," she said. "And don't give me a look, darling, just do as I ask."

"Fine," Arthur huffed, taking the bottle from her. He did this with care instead of snatching it as he would with a real big sister. Mal was too precious to him for that kind of behavior, and he could never feel seriously annoyed with her.

He left the Cobbs and knocked lightly on the bathroom door. He heard the water running.

"A moment, please," Eames said.

"Okay, take your time. I've got some cold water for you."

"Delightful," Eames said. 

Arthur waited outside the door for thirty seconds. He didn't hear anything gross. He didn't hear anything at all and quickly debated whether he should ask if he was all right, or just leave. The cold water bottle was making his hand start to freeze.

"Mr. Eames, should I leave you alone?"

"I'm all right," Eames said. He unlocked the door. Instead of coming out, he invited Arthur into the bathroom with him.

Arthur kept his face blank and neutral as he stepped into the small room and handed Eames the bottle. Eames sat on the closed toilet, his face pale, hands shaking. Arthur felt bad; he knew that feeling too well.

"You shot yourself in the fucking head," Eames said.

"It's the quickest way to wake up, and the most painless."

"Don't you ever think about the people still in the dream, watching you?"

Arthur couldn't hide his surprise. Eames was a criminal; surely he'd seen his share of bad shit, and this was just a dream, after all. "You get used to it."

"I'm not sure about that," Eames said with a small, husky laugh. He looked down at the water bottle in his hands. "Arthur. May I touch you?"

Arthur pressed his back against the wall, not sure how to interpret the request.

"To see if we're really here," Eames hastened to add, when he saw Arthur's reluctance.

"Oh. Well..." It had been a long time since he'd seen people do this in DreamTech as well as the Dreamcade: touch a real person to make sure you were awake. He pushed himself off the wall and sat on the edge of the tub, next to Eames. The forger turned towards him. Arthur expected a touch on his arm, or shoulder; a tap or a tug. Something solid. Instead, Eames lifted his hand to Arthur's face and delicately touched his forehead. Where he'd pressed the dream-gun and pulled the trigger.

"Just think about how you got here," Arthur said, trying to pretend it wasn't awkward and weird to have this guy touching his forehead. "That's how Cobb does it. If you can remember how you got here, you're awake."

"I came here with you, this morning, after you broke into my room last night."

"Right. Mal's working on something more reliable, more elegant, but until then."

Satisfied that they were awake, Eames dropped his hand and released the breath he'd been holding. "What compound do you lot use?"

Arthur sat back. "Somnovril. It's a little different from what we used in DreamTech, but still by SomniCore. It still makes me queasy sometimes too."

"I'm not here to tell anyone their business, but where I work we use something different, and I don't know of anyone who's had this reaction. Arthur, Somnovril is nearly a narcotic, and the hours of NPO you need before it make the sickness worse."

"I know. But the newer ones haven't been tested yet and we're bound by law. By SomniCore." _As you are not_ , he didn't add, but felt a twinge of that old jealousy, the envy of Mr. Eames who worked outside of the monopoly, who was not bound by a big corporation. Who did whatever the hell he wanted. "I wonder if there's a way to get hold of some of what you use and have it passed for a trial period. It'd be a shame if this held us back."

"You mean if I couldn't take a job or two with you lot, even if the Cobbs wanted me?"

"Dom liked your work," Arthur said. It was as committal as he was willing to get; he didn't dare speak any further for Dom.

"And Mrs. Cobb?"

"Since she wasn't in with us, she'll go with Dom's judgment and her instinct."

"And you, Mr. Arceneau?"

"I'm not the one who's..."

"I don't care about that. I want your opinion."

Arthur leaned against the cool bathroom tile and shrugged. He was aware of how casual and perhaps youthful the gesture looked, and it brought back to mind the version of him that Eames had so easily forged. That boy who was not Arthur. "You're very talented," he said. "And you've got great sp--"

"Speed, endurance, imagination, yes, yes." Eames looked up at him, his eyes light under the flourescents. "Hey, sorry if I overstepped with forging you earlier. I try to create beyond what's given, and, you know, sometimes I can see very clearly. Sometimes I go too far, you know?"

Arthur collected himself and aimed his coolest stare at Mr. Eames. "It's not a problem. You did really well. It's not every day I get to see myself through someone else's eyes. It's interesting."

"Is that who you were?" Eames pressed. He took a drink of water, his eyes not leaving Arthur's. "Back then?" 

And Arthur knew that he wasn't talking about the hair or the glasses, the hoodie, the t shirt and jeans.

"Yeah, I did kind of look like that," was all he said.

Eames was a forger, but, Arthur reminded himself, also a thief.

_And you've now stolen two things from me._

* * ** ** ** *


	2. Chapter 2

When Eames's cell phone rang at a respectable hour, he knew it had to be one of the team. Cobb's name and number actually came up on his screen. Eames wasn't used to numbers that weren't private. He let it ring three times, as he walked down the street in search of an something exorbitantly priced. (He didn't care what; he just wanted to spend money.) Then he flipped the phone open, grinning. He wondered if Arthur was with them.

"Eames here."

"Hello, yes, Mr. Eames. Umm, we'd really like to do a test run with a compound that you can use. Miles can arrange some willing test subjects, but he can't locate any chemists who make anything other than a variation of Somnovril. The chemicals just aren't available through legal channels. SomniCore roadblocks us at every corner. You know?"

Eames hadn't actually seen this coming so soon, Cobb openly turning against SomniCore. He'd picked up on the frustration, but hadn't expected any open action such as this. "Yes, I can probably come up with some; I've got a chemist out of Mombasa, but he deals here." He cringed, wishing he hadn't used the word _deals._ "It's a heavier sedative, but it doesn't come with the side effects. Somnovril relies on narcotics."

"I know; it irks me that it's the only thing that's still legal."

"Well, that's what happens when big companies are the only ones holding the door open. SomniCore cuts their goods with jimsonweed, Mr. Cobb, did you know that? A few dreamers died last year. I've fought this company for a long time. As I'm sure Arthur has informed you." 

"Many times," Cobb said, a hint of amusement in his voice.

"Pharmaceutical companies kill more people yearly than anything else. And pot is illegal, yeah?"

"No, I agree with you," Cobb said. "So listen, can you come down to the Randolph sometime today? I'd like to send Arthur along with you to meet your chemist."

"Arthur. Really."

"Mal's got an ultrasound today."

"Of course. Oh yes, that'd be fine. I think I can make it this afternoon. Let me make a few calls first and I can be there in..." He glanced at his watch. It was noon. "An hour."

"That'd be great, Mr. Eames. Looking forward to it."

And Cobb hung up, just like that.

So. Now the Cobbs were recruiting him to procure illegal compounds behind the back of their major funders. Interesting. He liked it.

Eames made his few telephone calls. Whistled cheerily in between them. And then made his way to the hotel.

He expected to go back up to the room and find Arthur waiting for him, but he ran into the Cobbs on their way out. They clung to each other, giggling about something, before they caught sight of him.

"Mr. Eames," Mal said, placing her hand on his arm when she was within reach. "Dom tells me all night how wonderfully you did in the first run."

"Thanks," he said. He forced himself to refrain from asking what Arthur had said, if anything. Then wondered why the hell he cared about his opinion so much. Maybe because he guarded it so closely, and Eames liked to take things of value.

"Arthur's waiting upstairs," Cobb said. "Have you made your calls?"

"It looks like a go," Eames said. "You do know what this means, don't you? What I'll be doing? And your own complicity?"

"We understand, Mr. Eames," Cobb said.

Mal turned to Cobb. "Dominic, do you mind getting Papa's car? My ankles hurt."

"Sure." He kissed her cheek and jogged back toward parking. 

Eames looked at Mal. She wasn't even showing yet, and her ankles hurt? He smiled at her, waiting for whatever it was she had to tell him.

"Mr. Eames, do be careful today," she said.

"Of course."

"With Arthur."

He raised an eyebrow.

"I know," she said. "He's not a child, but he is precious to us. And if you're going into a dangerous place, I regret what I might do if he should come to harm. Not to you, Mr. Eames, but to anyone who would hurt him."

"Is he your brother or something?" 

She shook her head. "Perhaps I've become a Mama Wolf since becoming pregnant. But then, I've always cared for Arthur, as Dominic does too. I am as skilled an extractor as they come. I can find out who hurts my team and I can take measures against them." Her smile softened her words. "Perhaps I will care for you, too, Mr. Eames."

He didn't disbelieve her; any of it. She looked like a queen, as her dark eyes studied him. Maybe he felt a bit like a knight. "I know a rough crowd, Mrs. Cobb," he said. "It might be better if Arthur weren't there."

"He needs to be along. He's point man. I don't expect you to have any troubles, but, in case. Arthur will, as Dominic says, 'have your back' at all times. Please have his back, too."

"I will. Of course."

Cobb pulled up in a Christing _Bentley_ and Mal touched her palm to Eames's cheek. Then she got into the car. Cobb rolled down the window and said, "Thanks, Mr. Eames. We'll meet up with the two of you tonight, maybe? Arthur will give me a call."

"That's fine," Eames said. And then, to Mrs. Cobb: "Good luck today."

"To you, too," she said, leaning over Cobb.

They pulled away, leaving Eames standing outside of the swank hotel, in the foggy rain.

He shook his hair out and went inside. Arthur met him in the lobby. He was dressed this time in a suit - a goddamn _pinstriped suit_ , a really nice one, with a jacket slung over his shoulder. In his other hand he held a hat, which he placed on his head as he said, "Hello, Mr. Eames."

"Hello, Arthur," Eames said, and had to stop himself from laughing out loud when he saw that Arthur's hat was a fedora. Was this kid serious? "Are you ready to go, Mr. Cagney?" he said.

Arthur favored him with a small laugh and said, "It's raining." Then he rolled his sleeves down and put his jacket on.

"We're going to some places where... You know what, never mind." _Maybe it'll come across better if he looks like a mobster,_ Eames thought. Although looking at Arthur's profile, he doubted anyone would mistake him for a dangerous criminal. 

"I don't mind getting my hands dirty," Arthur said. "Or my clothes." He jerked his head toward the door and Eames walked with him, side by side. 

"If you say so. Then, shall we?"

Arthur nodded, a polite smile on his lips. Eames committed it to memory, under 'Arthur in a fedora on a rainy day.'

And suddenly, Eames realized that the prospect of spending two hours with Arthur on the tube to London loomed ahead. He whistled again as they walked into the rain.

* * * *

Arthur didn't mind the looks he got with the suit and hat. He quite liked being the only person on the train with pinstripes and a fedora. And he was aware of how he must look next to Mr. Eames, in his long overcoat, which he shed once inside the train to reveal a plaid flannel shirt and jeans. Eames's heavy workboots clomped along beside him.

"I like to go forward," Eames said. 

"Huh?"

"On the train. I like to sit going forward."

"Oh. Me too." 

Eames offered him the window; Arthur accepted. They took seats next to each other and Arthur said, "Anyway. I guess Mal already gave you The Talk."

"Oh, yes," Eames said. He clearly wasn't sure if Arthur knew all the details of 'The Talk'. Arthur saw him clam up.

"You don't need to worry about me, Mr. Eames. Mal just gets... she can be a little bit fierce."

"Well, the Cobbs both adore you, that much is obvious," Eames said. He looked forward as the train started to move.

Arthur studied the other man's profile: the full features, patrician nose, generous lips. He didn't look like a criminal; he looked like someone out of a movie, although Arthur knew well enough that criminals came in all varieties of demeanor and look.

Hmm. He wondered what Mal thought of him now that she had met him. Was she impressed? Would she eventually be as impressed by Eames as she was by Arthur?

If Mal had given Eames the "Take Care Of Arthur" talk, that meant Eames was likely already in. She didn't announce her loyalties unless she thought someone had to know about it.

"What's the story?" Eames asked. "How'd you meet them?"

 _You're not getting that from me, too. Not the whole thing, anyway. Not how, out of everyone, they chose_ me _; Mal chose me, Dom taught me, and I never looked back._

"In DreamTech," he finally said. He turned to Eames, giving him an intense look, filled with meaning; shifting the focus from himself to the Cobbs. "They're pioneers. They were looking for recruits and when they came to me, there was no way I could refuse. The dreamwork they offer is beyond anything I'd ever done at school. When you go under with Cobb—I mean for real, not just for a trial run—you'll see what I mean. He's a genius." _And he's better than any of your past extractors._

Eames wasn't deflected. "They chose you out of all the other prospects. They must have seen the same in you."

"They chose you, too," Arthur said. "It's an honor."

Eames's eyes didn't leave his. He didn't look flattered, or impressed, or distracted. Just amused. "Arthur, would you like to play cards?" 

"What, you have a deck on you?"

"Of course. Always."

It seemed a decent enough way to pass the time, and maybe it would get Eames off his case for a while. "Sure."

"Let's play for stakes."

"What stakes?" Arthur asked, trying not to sound cautious. 

"Questions and answers. True answers."

"How will we know if they're true?" Arthur said.

"Honor system. You look fairly trustworthy."

Arthur snorted. "You don't."

"Tch tch. If you don't know by now that looks are deceiving..."

"Said the forger," Arthur said. He didn't know why, but he was enjoying the banter. Eames had a pleasant voice, he noted. Not like the shit-talking criminal he'd envisioned before meeting him, and he wasn't sure if that irked him or not.

Eames cut the deck and dealt the cards. Arthur had been a hell of a card player in college, and he felt pretty confident that he'd be the one asking questions.

Eames, as it turned out, was a hell of a card player too.

"What's your prescription?" Eames asked, thirty minutes later.

"Beg your pardon?" 

"For your glasses."

"Oh. I don't know. Here." He took the case out of his pocket, took the glasses from them and handed them to Eames. "Don't get fingerprints on them."

"You've already got my fingerprints; I won't be so careless again." Eames held the glasses and looked through them. "They're about the same as mine," he decided, and handed them back.

"Okay," Arthur said. "So I'm taking that as your question."

"Oh yes, don't worry about that. I'll ask you a better one after the next game."

"If you win."

Eames smiled.

...

"What's your sign?"

"I don't know. I was born in September."

"Virgo, I _knew_ it. And I'll bet your moon is in Scorpio."

…

"What's your real name?"

"It's Arthur."

"Of course; you've had it changed. But what's your _given_ name?"

Arthur rolled his eyes. "Are you really going to waste your last question on something you know I won't answer?"

"Who said it was my last question?"

"The fact that we're already in London."

Eames sighed and packed up his cards. "I'll get it from you one day."

"It's not important. To you I'm Arthur. It doesn't matter what I used to be called. Are you still Luke Bishop?"

"Do you see how unfair that is?" Eames said, standing up as the train came to a stop. "You knowing my name?"

Arthur patiently waited for Eames to get his coat on before standing up. He put his jacket and hat back on. "But it's my job to know."

"Are you really French?" 

To that, Arthur smiled again. He had taken Mal's mother's maiden name. "Well, I speak French." 

"That's hardly the same thing." Eames let him pass. 

As they left the train, Arthur wondered why he was such a mystery to Eames. He'd never met a forger like Eames before; maybe he just desperately needed to unravel everything, so that he could copy it.

"Fluently?" 

Arthur didn't answer.

* * * * *

It was raining properly when they got to the Den. 

"The Den," as local dreamers called it, was as illegal as dreamrooms came. It was where forgers did their dirtiest work. Where chemists came up with their cleanest compounds. It was, in some cases, where people spent days, sometimes weeks, under; hooked up to devices that let them piss and shit while they slept. After a while, some of them stopped doing even that.

Dreamers here bought time under, and in some cases sold anything they had on them. Their fortunes; their entire lives. Themselves.

And no one here dressed up. There was no need for suits and hats.

Eames actively hated the place, but here, he knew some people who knew some people who robbed some people in SomniCore. Those people created their own compounds out of the tightly-controlled substances that went into the one legal drug. 

It stank like hell, and Eames coughed when he went in. Arthur stood behind him, quiet. The lights were brighter up on the first floor than down in the cellar, where the dreaming took place. Up here, people talked, sometimes loudly. A telly hung in the corner over a bar, showing the news. No alcohol was served at this bar, though – dreamers here didn't require intoxication, and in fact, drink only screwed up their perfect dreams. Glass vials lined the walls instead, filled with various compounds for dreaming. High-end stuff to low end.

A woman in nurse's scrubs lay splay-legged on a velvet sofa in one dimly lit corner, bleeding from her lip and wrists, dazed. Most of the tables were empty; no one stayed up here too long. 

"Tommy Eames," said a hulk of a man, approaching them. He was large, well-built, clean among the filth, a business-man. Crew-cut and acne scars, grey eyes. 

The very last man Eames wanted to see here. God, he hated old grudges. So inconvenient. He didn't like fighting; and he for some reason didn't want to do it in front of Arthur. Didn't want to get blood on his suit, maybe.

"Who's your boy?"

"Leave him alone, Marlow," Eames growled.

But soon the rest of the man's scumbag crew came oozing in from a back room, as if they could scent the pheromone marked "trouble" on the air. There were four of them, all muscle.

"Yusuf here?" Eames asked, trying to deflect, casual. 

"That useless uppity fuck has left us for sunnier climes," Marlow said. "Owing us a compound."

"He owes _you_? I doubt that."

The conversation got no further, as one of Marlow's big stupid thugs reached out and knocked Arthur's fedora off his head. Arthur sighed wearily, but otherwise didn't react.

Eames grabbed the guy's arm and jerked him away from Arthur. "Leave him alone; I will cave your fucking skull in and shit in it."

Arthur actually laughed, a chuckle that almost sounded politely pleased.

"Is that funny?" Marlow asked Arthur.

And, god, these assholes towered over him. Towered over both of them. Eames was suddenly very aware of Arthur's small frame behind him, all those narrow bones.

"Hilarious, the entire thing," Arthur said. Then his voice changed into a snarl. "Now pick up that fucking hat." 

Eames turned and stared at him, his mouth falling open slightly. The thug slipped out of his grasp.

Four men and Marlow surrounded them on all sides. Eames got ready, because no matter how tough Arthur could talk, these idiots were not going to be intimidated. He considered the gun under his jacket, but again balked at shooting someone in front of Arthur.

However, he also knew better than to back down. Two or three of them - he could take at least that many and he just hoped against hope that Arthur could hold his own. He thought of Mal's dark eyes.

Marlow made the first move, but it wasn't towards Eames. He kicked the hat toward Arthur's feet.

"Bend over and pick it up, darling," he leered.

Arthur's fist seemed to come from another dimension. One where maybe time moved faster, because the next thing Eames knew, Marlow was on the floor bleeding from his mouth.

Eames stared for a second, first at Marlow, then at Arthur, who was shaking out his hand. 

Then Eames ducked one of the dirtbag's swings. The next one caught him on the side of the head. His ears rang. He swung back, a hook to the jaw of the guy who had hit him, knocking him out.

Marlow stood and reached into his coat.

 _Gun_ , Eames thought, and was just about to take Arthur down, press him to the floor, dodge fucking bullets with him.

Marlow got as far as aiming before Arthur's hand shot out again. Something cracked, a bright, "POP" sound. Marlow screamed.

The third in the group tried to tackle Eames to the ground. Perhaps without finesse, Eames kicked him straight up in the ball-sack. 

The fourth thug tried to back off, but Eames grabbed him by the hair and broke his nose with his elbow. 

Arthur still held Marlow by the hand. It took Eames a moment to figure out the logistics of it. The gun was pointing toward the ceiling, and so was Marlow's trigger finger, trapped by it, bent almost all the way back. The rest of his fingers were flailing, trying to shake the gun off, and break Arthur's grip. 

"Call the rest of your asshole men off," Arthur said. "I have absolutely no problem shooting you in the face." Then he looked around. The other men lay groaning and bleeding on the floor. Arthur looked at Eames and gave him a small smile. Then he looked back to Marlow and pulled the gun free. "Well, never mind. Pick up that fucking hat, though."

Marlow doubled up, clutching his broken finger in his good hand. He had to kneel to retrieve the hat; to Eames it looked like supplication. He didn't look at Arthur as he handed it back to him.

"Go and get this Yusuf or whoever for Mr. Eames," Arthur said, casually dusting off the fedora. He cringed when he touched it, as if the floor had dirtied it beyond repair.

"He's not fucking _here_ ," Marlow gritted out, getting to his feet.

"Well then get someone who knows him, Christ." Arthur stepped over the first gent that Eames had knocked out and went to a booth table. 

Eames's head buzzed like it always did after a fight. But his chest tingled with a coiled, fizzy feeling. He couldn't believe what he'd just seen and didn't know how to fit it together with Arthur - _Arthur_ , whom he'd only known for a few days, whom he had forged as a schoolboy in a faded hoodie. Arthur who wore the same prescription glasses that he did, and a stupid goddamn fedora and pinstripes like if he was James fucking Cagney.

Arthur threw himself into the chair, one hand bloody, resting on the gun. He slapped his other hand over his forehead and rubbed at his eye. "This gives me a headache," he said.

Eames went to the bar, got a small towel and some ice. Wrapped the ice in one towel and handed it to Arthur.

"Oh. Thanks." Arthur put the ice over his knuckles and went back to rubbing his head.

"I might be in love with you," Eames said, taking the seat across from him.

Arthur moved his hand away from his face and looked at Eames, one elegant eyebrow raised.

 

* * * * *

Arthur's head throbbed and his neck hurt. Fighting sucked, and it brought back bad memories.

But at least they got their compound. The owner of The Den gave it to Arthur free of charge. Arthur watched as Eames made Marlow dose it to make sure it was clean. Eames said he didn't trust anything that didn't come directly out of this Yusuf's hands, and since he hadn't seen him make it...

"Wish you'd come back," the Den manager said to Eames. "You're still the best we ever saw. And we could use a man like your friend there."

"I'm a free agent, Tony," Eames said.

"This guy offering you more pay?" Tony asked, nodding to Arthur as Marlow slipped under, into the dream.

"Yes," Eames said, and offered no more information. 

Arthur wondered if he felt some shame, walking around with SomniCore ilk.

"Congratulations on moving up in the world," Tony said, his voice hard, brittle.

A few minutes later, Marlow came out of it smoothly. He didn't look anyone in the face.

"We're done here," Arthur said, pocketing the container. "Let's head back, Mr. Eames."

They went out into the late afternoon rain, Eames leading, Arthur at his back. 

On the tube, Eames asked him, "Was it because he called you 'darling'?"

"Huh?" Arthur said. His brain felt fried; he wanted to be back at the hotel.

"When you broke his finger. Was it because he called you 'darling'?" Eames was smiling, teasing.

"He was waving a gun in my face." Arthur sat back and closed his eyes.

"So then it must be all right if I call you darling. Darling?"

Arthur's head still hurt. "Like I said. It doesn't matter what you call me. As long as we work well together, that's all that matters."

"I'm only joking," Eames said. "You should lighten up, or are you always such a cactus?"

Arthur cracked an eye open and looked at the forger, who, at the moment, didn't seem to be forging anything. Or maybe he was forging honesty. "Yes, always," Arthur answered.

"That's too bad. Still, I am impressed. Where did you learn to fight?"

Arthur hid the cringe that always came with personal questions. Dom and Mal knew his story; did everyone need to? "I'm sorry; I'm tired. I wouldn't mind getting some rest before we get back to the hotel."

"I learned from my brothers," Eames said. "And my sister, actually, who was a complete nutter and a hardcase. She was a boxer, but she ended up in jail on assault charges. Anyway, she and my brothers taught me a lot before many of them ended up in jail. Don't get me wrong; my family had money, but it did nothing to take the edge off. When the rich get bored, you know? Then when my eldest brother got hit by a train I joined the military to..."

"I'm sorry," Arthur said, "are you telling me all of this so that I'll trade information with you?"

"Just making conversation."

"Because honestly, my past isn't all that enlightening and if you want to know who I am, then stick around and work with us. Because the work is most important."

Eames went silent. Arthur tried to close his eyes again, but couldn't. He shifted uncomfortably. Sat up and tried to crack his neck, to ease the tension. His eyes throbbed. Eames sat beside him, looking bored.

"I learned to fight in high school," Arthur said. "Just through necessity because I got involved in some serious trouble, mostly by my own doing. I turned narc and became very unpopular. Later on I had some formal training through the police academy but that obviously didn't pan out."

Eames was smiling at him, pleased, looking sort of sated in a weird way. Arthur didn't know why; there was nothing he could do with this information. It was too generic. He couldn't see why Eames cared about this. Maybe it was a forger thing.

"You went to police academy? Why?"

"They came to me before I even finished school. I did some work for them. According to them, I was supposed to eventually get into Quantico. But I like to do things my own way. The law has too many laws." 

"Where did you go to school?" 

"California."

"Thank you, Arthur," Eames said, and sat back and closed his eyes.

Arthur let the tension drain out of his shoulders. It seemed that Eames was done with him for now. He arranged himself comfortably as he could in his seat, and soon, he too closed his eyes.

They remained that way until the train arrived back in Oxford. Arthur rang Cobb and told him they'd gotten a sample of the compound, and to meet them at the Randolph for dinner.

It was after 6 PM and the rain had tapered off to a drizzle. 6:30 by the time they were back at the Randolph. Eames went his own way, back to his hotel to get cleaned up and changed for dinner. Arthur couldn't wait to do the same. He wanted to stand under the hot water, washing away the day's blood and stench, and the headache that hadn't left since he walked into the Den. He'd seen worse, but it didn't change the fact that fighting stressed him.

In his room, he laid out his clothes, neat on the bed, in the order he needed to put them on. Checked over his hat and then threw it in the trash.

He wondered what Eames was doing, if maybe he was thinking about it too, that gun pointed at them. Or maybe he was used to it.

After a brief, hot shower that felt life-restoring, he got dressed and slicked back his hair. The image that Eames had forged came to him: himself as a schoolboy with the stupid long, curly hair he used to have. This way was better. It was how Dom did his hair.

When he looked tidy enough, he headed downstairs.

He got there before Eames, and met Mal by the bar. She sat with her legs crossed, sipping cranberry juice. When she saw him, she slid off her seat and he met her half way. She pulled him to her and squeezed like she always did. 

"It was wonderful, Arthur," she whispered.

 _Right, the ultrasound._ He'd forgotten about it, and felt immense relief that she'd reminded him before he started going on about business.

"I hope they gave you a picture." He held her shoulders and smiled.

"Oh, yes!" She dug into her clutch and retrieved a small, black and white image, which she held up to him.

Arthur had no idea what he was looking at but he assumed that one of the smudges was the baby. 

"It's there," she said, pointing to a bean-shaped blur.

He looked at it, then at her, hardly fathoming that something so small could live. Could live inside Mal, like that.

"That's kind of amazing," he said.

"It's going to change so much. Arthur, how very much we will need you, always."

Dom strode into the bar then, nearly as radiant as Mal. He grabbed Arthur in his strong arms and held him so tight that he lifted him off the ground.

"Jesus, Dom," Arthur said when he was released. "Assault me in front of the whole place."

Dom laughed, loud and maybe already a little drunk. "I looked at my _kid_ , Arthur. Fuck!"

"Dominic!" Mal scolded. "All right then, this is enough boy talk for the two of you. Now Arthur must tell us of how everything went today, while we still have the privacy."

She led them to a small red sofa by the fire place. Mal and Dom urged Arthur to sit between them, so that he could talk to both at once. He sank into the contours of the sofa, which was warm from the fire. Some of the chill from the entire day seeped out of him.

"And?" Dom urged.

"Well, we ran into some trouble," Arthur said. "Eames's chemist guy wasn't there but that wasn't even the main problem. Some guy named Marlow had some sort of grudge with him over whatever. It got violent."

Mal took his hand. "Was anyone hurt?" She finally looked at his knuckles. "Oh, Arthur."

"It's nothing."

"And Eames?" Dom said.

"I think he's solid. Unless he thought this was a shakedown and set something up prior so he'd come up looking good, you know, use his own muscle as a scape."

Arthur stopped talking and pressed his lips together. Mal stared at him, looking as if she could be disappointed in a half a minute. She didn't like when he talked like that, said it made him sound sad, and further, she couldn't understand it.

"I think he's all right," he went on. "I'd have to check his calls to see if he contacted any of those guys, if I wanted to be sure, but I broke that guy's hand in two places. Didn't feel like a setup."

"What did you feel about Eames?" Dom pressed.

 _Feel? That he wouldn't let up. That he wants too much. Annoyed. Intruded upon. Impressed. Companionable._ Finally he said, "He's a forger; it doesn't matter what I felt. What matters is the facts, and I don't know them yet."

"And likely never will," Mal said. "How well do we know anyone?"

And then Eames's silhouette stood in the doorway, as he scanned the room for the three of them.

* * * ** **

 

Eames watched the three of them sitting on the sofa together by the fire. They looked like some strange kind of family, elegant and indefinable in their relationships. Arthur spoke freely to them, and Eames knew that he was the subject of the conversation. Dom Cobb looked serious, intent as he listened to Arthur.

Eames watched Arthur answer the question he couldn't hear but understood perfectly: _What do you think of Mr. Eames?_

Arthur raised his shoulders, non-committal (" _I could be wrong, but..._ ") Gestured with his hands ( _"Someone pointed a gun, I broke his finger..."_ ) His face was relaxed, uncreased; his eyes soft around the edges.

Cobb asked Arthur a question and Arthur considered his answer briefly. Another shrug. He laced his fingers together before answering. (" _I think he's all right but there's too much riding on this for a definite answer._ ") Arthur knew enough to cover his ass.

Then Mal leaned in and said something to Arthur.

Arthur suddenly seemed aware that Eames was in the room – how, he didn't know. Eames made quick work of pretending to have just arrived. He scanned the room for the three of them. Yet he felt Arthur's eyes on him, unwavering. As if the cat had belled him instead.

He looked at Arthur and smiled. The point man waved him over, and the three of them rose from their cosy sofa to great him.

"Mr. Eames," Mal said, pressing her warm hand into his. "We were discussing you just now."

"Were you, now?"

"Arthur has been telling us of your trip today."

He thought he heard warning in her voice again, and looked down at her. Then to Arthur, who looked impassive and distant.

"I knew it was going to get ugly today, Mrs. Cobb," he said.

"Thank you," she said, still holding his hand. (" _Thank you for watching Arthur's back,_ " he got from her, and wanted to tell her that he'd actually felt quite unnecessary.)

Cobb said, "Arthur says you've got a compound."

"Yes, I've got it. But before we discuss this, allow me to say that I hope all went well for the two of you today."

Mal beamed at him. "I'll show you the picture, Mr. Eames. Can we head to dinner? I'm famished, as I eat for two. And business will be later."

Eames was glad he'd dressed to the nines, because the restaurant was ridiculously posh. He thought he probably almost looked as put together as Arthur.

They sat down at a table, the four of them, Arthur very silent as if he had something on his mind. Mal took her sonogram picture from her clutch and showed it to him. Eames didn't know what the hell he was looking at, until she pointed to a lighter smudge among the many.

"That's lovely," Eames said. "It's going to be beautiful and gifted." Then he looked at Arthur, stared until the other man felt it and looked up. Sure he had his attention, he asked Mal, "Have you thought of names yet?"

"James for a boy," she said, looking at Dom. And then, glancing at Arthur sidelong, "Phillipa for a girl."

"Phillipa," Eames said, glancing again at Arthur. "How lovely."

Arthur rolled his eyes and minutely shook his head. He patted Mal's arm and said, "Thank you. You honor me." Then he turned to Eames. "Phillip is my middle name."

 _Damn. Another time, then_.

"So, the compound," Dom said. "I'd like to give it a try."

"Yes. Of course. But there's something we need to discuss, first. It's my chemist and his rights to the formula."

"Ahh," Mal said. "This is always a concern, but of course we would never give up his name."

"It's not just that," Eames said. "Yes, that too – we're all going to have SomniCore breathing down our necks if we propose something that's not theirs. However, if this compound—or any of the new ones—takes off, he won't sell to SomniCore. And I'll back him."

He studied Arthur again, gauging his reaction as he looked from Dom to Mal. The corners of his lips were turned up again. Then he quietly took a piece of bread from the basket and broke it, pretending he wasn't at all involved in this.

"We're sort of moving away from SomniCore," Dom said. "The monopoly they hold is unfair to begin with. And they're getting tighter by the minute."

"I applaud your efforts," Eames said, "but I know people who have tried to break away from them. That is, in fact, why I'm a criminal, Mr. Cobb." He mimicked Arthur and took a piece of bread from the basket, breaking it in the same way and eating it dry, like Arthur did.

Cobb smiled at him.

"To go against SomniCore," Mal said, quiet and sly, "we would have to be so much better than they are. We would have to be, as some would say, a team of superheroes, Mr. Eames."

Dom said, "I kind of lied when he said we'd interviewed hundreds of forgers. I mean, we did interview them, but we knew from the start we weren't going to hire any of them. We put the ad out for you, Mr. Eames. We only hoped you'd find it and come to us. Mal and I like to do our own thing, and we're good at it. The best, some would say. Our point man is the best at what he does. We need the best forger to complete this. Mr. Eames, we're about to get involved in something very big."

Eames put his bread down and looked them over. They all stared at him, expectant, waiting. Even Arthur, his exotic eyes calm yet curious, seemed to study him.

"We know how dangerous this is," Arthur said. "SomniCore is bigger than dream gangs in London and their thugs. Today wasn't a shakedown, Mr. Eames; I already know you can hold your own in something like that, just muscle with guns and blades. If we start to shake things up with SomniCore..."

Arthur stopped suddenly, with a sidelong glance to Mal. He looked almost guilty. Eames tried to make sense of this. He filed it away for later.

"SomniCore is most powerful," Mal said. "And by going against them, we put all of us into danger."

"You people are serious," Eames said. 

"We do nothing half way," Mal said. "We want you to know. Are you willing to be in danger?"

He looked at Arthur. He actually thought about this idea from top to bottom: was it worth it to go against SomniCore with such a high-profile group, to put his ass on the line and possibly his life? Fight to continue to dream freely? 

He looked at Arthur, and said, "Yes."

By the next morning, Arthur was gone.


	3. Chapter 3

_"I already know you can hold your own in something like that, just muscle with guns and blades..."_

Arthur's words to Eames came back to bite him when he awoke blindfolded and strapped to a chair in a silent room. He could also hold his own against a bunch of thugs. Had been able to do so since he was a wee little smack-talking high school kidlet. But now, SomniCore had him. If it was just thugs, they would already have roughed him, and he felt no pain. They were waiting for him to wake up, because they wanted something from him. Dom and Mal, most likely.

_Well, shit._

He tested the bonds on his wrists and ankles. They were pretty secure, and he was fairly certain there was duct tape over his eyes, because he could feel it pinching. He tipped the chair back and brought it back down on its legs. The sound rang out, a dull echo. A small room, then, he gleaned from the range of the echo. With a metal door. Not some basement or storage room. 

He leaned forward, getting his weight onto his feet, the chair keeping him in a bent position. He began to shuffle forward. After about twenty steps, his forehead came into contact with the wall. Concrete.

He walked the perimeter and lost track of time. He could only inch along, the chair still keeping him bent and mostly immobile. He searched each wall for glass – a two-way mirror or window. All four walls were concrete. One of them had a door. He could feel the seam of it, but no handle and no lock. A high security door.

They probably had a camera on him, but there was nothing he could do about that.

Then, time to get free. No use in waiting. He mentally prepared himself for a thrashing of his own doing. If he was going to destroy the chair, he'd get busted up as well. But there was no other way. He was just about to ram himself backwards into the wall, when the door opened with a hiss and a gust of metallic, cold air.

"Sit back down, Mr. Arceneau," said a clipped voice. 

"I am sitting."

"You're not. Put the chair legs back on the ground. Let's talk."

Arthur knew better than to think this was going to be a business chat, after which they'd let him go his merry way. But he also knew better than to show immediate aggression. He was rational; they needed to know that. He eased the chair legs back down.

"May I have some water?" he asked.

"Later."

"Can you at least tell me who you are and what you want with me?"

"Are we pretending that you don't know?" the voice asked. 

"You have the advantage of me. Yes, I have no idea who you are. I don't have to pretend."

A sigh. "You stole a compound."

He tried to raise his eyebrows in surprise, but the tape over his face prevented him. "That? A compound from some half-assed underground dream den? Those are a dime a dozen. I needed something that didn't make me puke. What's so special about the one I stole?"

No answer. The door opened again with another hiss.

"He won't talk?" A different voice asked. "Break his hands."

_Dreaming, I'm dreaming..._

Arthur tipped his chair back, but did not wake up.

** ** ** **

Mal paced, her knuckles between her teeth. Cobb sat with his head in his hands.

"I know where to start," Eames said.

"We must go with you," Mal said.

"Jesus, Mrs. Cobb. You're pregnant." And before Cobb could say he was going instead, Eames pointed at him, as if to keep him rooted to the spot. "And you're going to be a father."

"They took him because of us," Cobb said.

"Perhaps, and if so, if you go looking for him they'll get what they want and then they won't need him anymore. Do you understand?"

"Fuck!" Cobb said.

Mal strode to Eames, her eyes wide and wet. Her knuckles were red where she'd been biting them. She took him by the shoulders. "Mr. Eames, when you find them, you must please bring these people to me."

Gently, he said, "What will you do to them? You can't go under."

Her eyes changed. Some of the blind panic was gone, replaced by a glinting hardness that Eames didn't like on her. "I don't need to go under."

"Mal, god," Cobb said, his voice thick.

" _I want my point man back!_ " Mal turned and paced again. " _God damnit!_ "

"Mr. Eames, see what you can find out, please." Cobb tightly controlled his fear, or anger. Or both, probably.

"I won't be able to call your cell. They'll be tracking me and I could lead them right to you."

"Arthur knows a number to get in touch with me."

Mal turned on her heel, drove her fist into her palm. "If they've hurt him already, I will murder someone."

Eames couldn't listen anymore. He left the room and made his way back to the tube to London.

** ** ** **

Darkness still enveloped him as he came to the rest of his senses. He tried to raise his hands to his face, but couldn't. The agony in his knuckles faded. He flexed his fingers against something metal, testing them. They worked. He had no sense of direction and didn't know if he was sitting or lying down.

Something in his head changed. He wondered—suspected, really—that he had woken up and then been put back to sleep. Yet nothing else had changed; he still couldn't see, was still restrained, and the room was silent.

A door opened again. He turned his head toward the sound.

"You have information on a wanted rogue dreamer."

"What?" Arthur rasped. His voice was a whisper.

"We believe you have information on the whereabouts of Thomas Eames."

"Go fuck yourself."

Fingers gripped his jaw. "Arthur, your language is unacceptable."

Another voice joined them. "He won't talk?" this new voice asked.

The first didn't answer. Fingers pried his lips apart and the man slipped a thumb over his lower teeth, filthy and dominant. 

Arthur clamped his teeth shut as hard as he could, and felt the bone crunch. The man screamed and screamed, but he didn't let go until something came down on the back of his head. And then he _did_ see, but only colored, blooming flowers of light.

"Knock those fucking teeth out of his head."

** ** ** **

Eames didn't bother with the handle on the door to The Den. He kicked it down, splintering the old wood.

"Marlow!" he bellowed.

The Den manager, Tony, scurried from behind the bar.

"Tommy!" he said. "What the fuck, that's my door!"

"Get Marlow up here, I need a word."

"But..."

Eames didn't say anything; he just raised an eyebrow.

"A moment," Tony said. "Christ."

** ** ** ** 

"So you're Cobb's boy," a voice said. 

"' _I am no man's boy,'_ " Arthur quoted. His voice sounded slurred in his ears, slowed down like a warped record.

"Aren't you?"

"That was Shakespeare, asshole." Arthur clenched his teeth. They were all still there. His hands hurt like hell, his jaw hurt. His head throbbed and he still couldn't see.

The door opened again. "That Cobb's muscle?" the second man asked.

The first voice laughed and a hand ruffled Arthur's hair. "Doesn't look like it."

How many levels under was he? Or had they woken him up and put him back under yet again? He didn't know what time it was, what day it was, or even how he'd gotten here.

_Then I'm definitely still under._

Arthur lurched forward and surprised himself by falling to the ground, unrestrained. Two voices laughed.

"Cobb stole from us," one of them said.

Arthur tried to gain his feet. Lost his balance and went back down. His hands clawed at the blindfold over his eyes – but found that there was no blindfold. His heart stuttered. Sounds faded in and out. 

Not a normal dream.

"I'm going to fucking kill you all," he said.

"Break his ribs," the first voice ordered. "Don't stop until he talks."

Arthur tensed, every muscle splinting bones not yet broken.

** ** **

"I'm going to fucking kill you," Eames said, through clenched teeth. He held Marlow by the hair and shoved a gun into his mouth. "We're awake, Marlow. You'd better start talking around this fucking gun."

Marlow tried to kick, tried to claw at him. Eames slammed Marlow's head into the wall, stunning him but not knocking him out.

Marlow started talking. Eames couldn't understand, so he reluctantly removed the gun from between his teeth.

"Yesterday, men came in yesterday," Marlow said. "They asked about you, they asked about that fuckin' guy, I don't know! They didn't tell me anything!"

"What did you tell them, you shit?"

"I had you followed to the tube, _fuck!_ I'm sorry!"

"But what did you tell the men who came in here?"

"That you got on the train to Oxford. It was SomniCore, they threatened to..."

"Shut your fucking mouth." Eames bashed his head into the wall again. This time Marlow slid to the ground and remained there. 

Eames turned back to Tony. "Give me a description."

Tony backed away from him. "Tommy," he whimpered. "It's SomniCore, you heard him. You have to... We can't. Just let them go. Cut your losses."

Eames walked behind the bar, where Tony cowered. With his gun, he swept all the glass vials off the top shelf. The high-end stuff. Then the second shelf. Then the bottom one.

"Tommy!" Tony shouted. "God, what the fuck, Tommy!"

"A description of the men! Fucking _now!_ "

"They'll destroy us, they'll destroy the Den! _Everything._ "

Eames reached into his jacket pocket and took out his lighter. "The low-end compounds are quite combustible, Tony. So you can clean the fuck up, salvage what you can, and get out before SomniCore gets here, or I can burn the Den today. Choose."

Tony sank his head into his hands. Eames flicked the lighter. 

"Fine," Tony said. "Fine, just...Tommy, put the lighter away."

 

** ** ** ** **

Still dark, the only sound his own hard breathing, and his leaping heartbeat. Everything ached. He didn't know what was real and what wasn't, but he could only guess they'd put him under four or fives times, maybe more. This would be the last time. He'd get free before they came in and he would wake himself up first, leaving them in the dream. He needed to get his hands free. 

Arthur threw himself forward. Something beneath him wobbled; he pitched over onto his side and landed with a crash, unable to throw his arms out to save himself the fall. Felt like he was tied to the chair again. And now he was good and stuck.

Or maybe not?

He jerked his bound legs up enough to flip the chair over onto its back. On a good day, this would be easy work, but they'd had him down here for a long time and he was exhausted. It took him a while to work up to his next move. He was a good judge of space and movement, so he knew it was possible.

Tucking his chin, he back-flipped the chair over, rolling on his shoulder, so that he landed face-down. His head was turned to the side, cheek pressed into the cold cement, knees bearing the weight of the chair and the rest of his body. Both wrists bent over the arms of the chair with the backs of his hands scraping against the floor.

_This is not impossible. It's a dream; I can mess with the physics._

But somehow he couldn't. It took him forever to inch toward the wall, and his heart was threatening to break through his ribs by the time he got there. He stopped to catch his breath but it wouldn't come. Using the tiny bit of leverage and freedom he had in his hands and knees, he turned the chair so that its side, and his, were pressed against the wall. Then he began the arduous, hands-free climb to an upright, sitting position. 

He fell back down twice, landing on his face. The pain was ridiculous, more than he normally felt in a dream. He could feel bruises forming alone his cheeks. Through the dark, he could see those blossoming spots again.

When he did manage to get the chair upright, he hopped it away from the wall, inch by inch.

Then, bracing himself, fully understanding how bad this was going to be, he once again got his feet under him. With the chair strapped to him, he used his momentum and gravity to hurl himself into the wall as hard as possible.

The arm of the chair snapped free. He felt his arm fracture along with it and let out a cry that he was sure would alert the men who were holding him in the dream. He didn't have the time or luxury to be upset about it.

He used his free hand to yank the restraints off first one leg, then the other. The arm of the chair acted as a splint to his arm, but did nothing to deaden the pain, which was exquisite and bright. Sweat poured down his shirt.

The door opened and voices filled the room. Arthur left the strip of wood from the chair strapped to the broken arm; he could use it as a weapon. He needed to take at least one of these men out and grab a gun, to wake himself up.

They were shouting at him now, but he wasted no time. He swung with the arm of the chair, blind but hopeful. Didn't hit anything.

"Grab him, grab him!"

Arthur turned to the direction of the voice and swung again. His arm, backed by the wood that had been the chair's arm, came in contact with the side of someone's head. He heard a crunch, but didn't know if it came from his bone, or the other guy. Adrenaline was behind the wheel; he had to get that gun without killing any of them first.

Someone grabbed him from behind. Arthur backpedaled until he slammed the body into a wall, and then he threw his head back into the guy's face. He felt the nose crunch under his skull.

In the pitch-dark, he heard another person breathing. They knew he couldn't see. He held his breath, listening, waiting.

When the breathing got close enough, and he could feel the heat of another person closing in on him, he surged forward again. He tackled the third man to the ground and they fell in a tangle of flailing limbs. Arthur crashed his forearm, with the pole strapped to it, down on the other man's throat. The man choked and writhed beneath him. Arthur's arm sang a symphony of cold pain. His free hand searched for a gun on the man's belt.

"Awake..." the voice of the man beneath him croaked.

** ** ** **

As Arthur was backflipping a chair, Eames sat on the train, willing it to go fucking faster. His fingers flew over Arthur's stolen phone. 

He hadn't bothered to break the password for his email and phone contacts that first night. Now, he bothered. 

For a thief who stole more than mere objects, and for whom information was often the most sought-after commodity, a bit of hacking shouldn't be much of a problem. He had stolen identities, forged not only dream-images and signatures, but emails, web addresses, internet presences. 

Arthur's phone—for all that the point man had maintained that it wasn't one of his "important" ones—was still slightly more challenging than most. 

_uneameeveillee_ was his password. _A soul awake. Hope is the dream of a soul awake._

Eames smiled in spite of the situation. _Please,_ he prayed to no one, _let me get there in time._

He went through all of Arthur's contacts until he found one that was just a number and no name.

Once off the train where he had service, he dialed as he walked. Rain battered him from skies the color of static.

A male, American voice picked up on the third ring and said, "Yeah?"

"I don't know who you are," Eames said, "but I hope you are Arthur's friend."

"Arthur? Oh, shit. Is he in trouble?"

"Yes, and I'm sorry, I don't know his real name or how to contact his family."

"How'd you get his phone?" the man asked. He sounded youthful, but professional.

"I stole it. But listen, there's no time for that. Do you know if Arthur has any contacts in high places, that could help me locate him?"

"Well it's not like he has a chip implanted in him or... Wait."

"I don't have time to wait."

"Okay, _wait_ , I actually do have an idea. But how can I even know you're on the up? Maybe you're just looking to shake me for goods on him."

Eames stopped walking, wanted to shout, to throw the phone to the ground and stamp on it until it shattered. He slicked the rain out of his hair and eyes. "I don't have time to prove it to you," he said. "Look, do you know the kind of business he is in?"

"Dreams, of course, but..."

"Well SomniCore's got him, okay mate, and they've got some serious shit on him and they are not fucking around. Yes, I could easily be one of them! Yes, I could be trying to track him and yes, you could in fact be helping me find him and sealing his doom. But I don't have time to convince you that I'm not!"

"Is Cobb there?"

"No. But listen, I know the Cobbs; Mal's pregnant, she had a sonogram, she's going to name it Philippa if it's a girl, does that mean anything to you?"

"What's your name?"

"Currently it's Eames."

"Oh!" The voice on the other end brightened. "Oh, okay, yeah. Eames, Luke Bishop, right. Okay, look..."

"What the fuck..." Eames breathed, his voice shaking. How did this guy know him, know even _of_ him and what did that clear up?

"Shut up and listen," the voice said. "Okay, Arthur's got at least one phone he keeps with him all the time. Before when I said he didn't have a tracking chip or whatever I was being facetious but I _could_ trace that phone. It'll take me about an hour."

"Christ."

"I'm sorry. I don't know what else to to. They would have patted him down and taken the phone but it'll still be somewhere in the vicinity. So listen. Hold onto this phone, keep searching on your end. If Arthur was conscious for any of it he would have left a trail."

"A trail?"

"Of clues and broken bodies, Mr. Eames."

"Right. Oh, Jesus."

"So do me a favor. Go to a pay phone and dial the number that's going to come up on your screen in a sec. Then keep following the trail, if there is one. And wait for my call."

And then the line went dead.

** ** ** ** 

Arthur searched the broken bodies for a gun. The world was black; he moved quickly, by intuition, seeing with his hands. He didn't get far before more, less broken bodies came after him.

Projections or more real consciousnesses entering the dream – he didn't know.

He was one arm down and blind, but he barreled into them, through the door, and he fled, his arms out in front of him. They shouted behind him, their footfalls faster than his, gaining. Instinct made him turn uselessly to look behind him.

He crashed into a wall, practically bounced off of it and landed flat on his back. They were upon him. He kicked up as hard as he could, got someone in the gut, it felt like. Leaping to his feet without the use of his hands, he sent a roundhouse kick flying. It didn't make contact with anything. Someone grabbed him around the throat from behind; he broke another nose with the back of his head, then used the body behind him as leverage to kick again. This time he connected.

 

** ** ** **

Arthur's phone rang in Eames's hand. 

"Eames," the voice on the other end said. "I've got an address. There's no guarantee that he's still there, but..."

"I'll find out." 

"I'll send you the route."

"Great." 

He ended the call and then made another one, tapping the numbers without looking. 

"Who is this?" came the suspicious voice on the other end.

"It's Eames. Yusuf, please tell me you're in England."

"Just yesterday, in fact. You're in trouble, Mr. Eames?"

"I need a car, and I need _you_. I'm in Oxford."

"I'll send someone wherever you tell me and they'll be there shortly. It will take me a few hours to join you, though."

"I'll call you back the second I know."

** ** ** **

Arthur met the stairs to whatever building he was in; met them hard. He fell, sprawling on them, trying to use his good arm to catch his fall.

Stairs; he could work with stairs, even if he couldn't see them. He could wind them into a paradox. If he listened hard enough, he could tip at least one pursuer over them.

But his head throbbed in time with his fluttering heart, and he couldn't find the focus he needed.

Someone grabbed his ankle and jerked him back down. 

** ** ** **

Eames ran, his clothes soaked, following the map that the Arthur's mysterious contact had sent to the phone. The hijacked phone acted as a GPS telling him which way to turn, but it was hard to move and keep looking at the map.

He came to the place on the map with the red dot: a nondescript, secure building he would never have attributed to SomniCore. There were no guards standing outside. Eames drew his Beretta, threaded the silencer on, and blew the locks off the door.

** ** ** ** **

Arthur felt the metal of the gun pressed against the back of his head.

"He's not worth the trouble," a voice panted above him, followed by assenting murmurs.

He closed his eyes out of reflex and waited for the bullet that would wake him.

When the shot came, he heard it ( _Beretta with a silencer..._ ) But didn't wake up.

** ** ** **

Eames only saw a group of men surrounding another, smaller man who lay sprawled face-down on the stairs. He didn't have to see Arthur's face to know it was him. He caught the words "not worth the trouble" as the man closest to Arthur pressed the gun to the back of his head. Eames took aim and pulled the trigger.

Killing undid him; he didn't like it even in dreams. And dreams did not compare to the agony of killing in real life. But he couldn't afford to shut his eyes, or take a second to deal.

A trail of blood led from the adjacent hall to where Arthur lay on the steps. Two more men followed that trail. One caught sight of Eames and leveled his gun.

Eames shot the both of them, then turned back to the men around Arthur, all of them now in chaos. He pulled the trigger again, and again, until all of them lay bleeding. Maybe they were still alive; he didn't know.

He ran to Arthur, swooped down and grabbed him around the chest, hauling him to his feet. Arthur fought him, swinging his arm wildly.

"Arthur, Jesus, it's me!"

"Eames."

"Come on."

He pulled him along, half-dragging him towards the door. He checked around the hallway first, aiming his gun, making sure no one was waiting around the corner. 

Broken bodies lined the hallway, likely still living but unconscious. 

_Jesus Christ, he took them out. Never get on Arthur's bad side._

He pulled Arthur out into the rain, clutching him to his side. Arthur twined one hand into Eames's coat and kept up, panting and stumbling.

No one was following them, that he could see.

An unmarked car splashed up beside them, nearly running up onto the curb. Arthur started back, almost tripping over his feet, but Eames held onto him.

"Stay with me, Arthur, I've got us a car."

Arthur just panted wildly beside him as an answer.

Eames threw open the door to the back seat and said, "Who sent you?"

"Yusuf."

Eames put Arthur into the back and then got in beside him. The car sped away.

** ** ** ** **

Arthur knew that Eames had a gun. He didn't know if he was a projection, or if Eames had somehow gotten into the dream and hijacked it—if he could see, he might be able to tell the difference--but no matter which, Eames did have a means to wake them both up. Why Eames didn't just shoot him, Arthur didn't immediately know.

Then he remembered Eames getting upset over the shooting, the first and only time they'd dreamed together.

Eames dragged him along, and he guessed he was thankful because his legs didn't want to work. His arm throbbed, his head burned, his heart was slamming in his chest, knocking around like it wanted out.

Outside, the dream was raining. Arthur felt like he would drown in it. Eames was afraid; he could feel it. Instead of just waking them up, he was panicking. 

A terrible noise roared into existence and Arthur pulled away from it. Eames held him fast and said something about a car. He had to believe him. Sounds came across muddled and yet too loud. And then he was thrown down again, into a back seat. He felt Eames hustle in beside him.

Eames had a gun, one with a silencer. He'd heard him fire it.

** ** ** ** **

"Arthur, be still a moment while I look you over. All right?" Eames heard the tremor in his own voice and tried to quiet it.

Arthur nodded, staring ahead. His breathing was upsetting Eames; could he still be that winded? And there was a wooden bar strapped to his arm. Eames wondered briefly what it was, then decided he would deal with it later.

He leaned over the seat and addressed the driver. "Do you know where we're going?"

"Yusuf's got a place," the driver said.

"Get us there fast."

He ran his hands down Arthur's sides. Opened his vest and checked for fresh, warm blood. There wasn't any.

"Are you hurt? Are you shot?" he asked.

No answer. Eames took Arthur's jaw in his hand. "Arthur!"

Arthur sprang away from him and swung with his arm, hand balled into a fist. The wooden slat against his arm almost slammed into Eames's head, but he caught it in time. 

"Fuck! Arthur! It's me!"

Arthur still wasn't looking at him. He stared somewhere over Eames's head.

"Arthur, _are you hurt?_ "

"No. I don't know. No. Where are we going. What are we in?"

The senseless shock-babble switched some knowledge alive inside of Eames: Arthur had no idea what was going on.

"We're in a car," he said. "You're safe. I'm sorry for shouting. I got nervous though, Arthur. But I've got you. All right?"

Arthur reached out both hands in front of him. Eames's heart sank even further. He took hold of his wrists.

** ** ** ** **

Arthur reached toward the voice of Eames, searching for his face; he remembered what it looked like. But instead, Eames grabbed hold of his wrists.

The car stopped and gently, gently, the projection of Eames (or maybe it was really him,) slipped his arms behind Arthur's back and helped him out of the car. He was murmuring things like "I've got you" and "there we are" and other such nonsense.

The dream was still raining. Eames still had a gun. As he set Arthur's feet on the ground (which twisted under him, god, how was he even supposed to stand?) Arthur grabbed it from the holster and pointed it at his temple.

"Thank you, Mr. Eames, for coming for me. I know how this unsettles you, but it's the quickest way to wake up."

"Jesus Christ, Arthur, no!"

Arthur pulled the trigger.


	4. Chapter 4

Arthur stared ahead, unseeing, as the car came to a halt. He was still panting as if he'd run a race – and Eames understood that he had, actually, and had barely come out ahead.

The car's driver threw Eames the key to the house. Eames thanked him, asked him to tell Yusuf to kindly hurry the fuck up, and pulled Arthur out of the car. He held him around the waist as he swayed, the rain making clean tracks down the blood on his face. Eames hadn't taken a good look at those lacerations yet. 

Arthur leaned heavily against him, his face blank. They were in front of a private residence that Eames recognized as one of Yusuf's workspaces. Relief flooded him.

"I've got you, Arthur, all right? Here we are," he said. Mostly to himself, as he wasn't sure Arthur was listening. "We'll get inside and sort this out."

Arthur moved quicker than should be humanly possible in his condition, and drew Eames's gun out of the holster.

"Thanks... Eames, unsettling, Eames, sorry. Dream is raining wanna wake up." He pressed the gun to his temple.

"Jesus Christ, Arthur, no!"

The realization hadn't even quite hit him when he grabbed Arthur's hand and swatted it upwards. Arthur fired the gun. To Eames's dying day, he thought, he'd see the bullet taking off that strip of Arthur's hair.

Arthur fell, clutching his head. Eames caught him in shaking arms that threatened to give out. He'd had enough; the adrenaline was going to kill him.

"Arthur, fuck, _you're awake._ " He slipped the gun from Arthur's limp fingers, hauled him up against his side again, and dragged him to the front door.

"No man's boy," Arthur said. And, "I've got it under control."

"Like hell you have."

"A rogue dreamer. They want the Cobbs and the rogue dreamer. I gave them nothing."

Eames pulled him inside and hit the light switch by the door. Yusuf's lab was in the basement; the upstairs was spare, seldom-used, but clean. They both dripped blood and rain all over dark wood floors. A Persian rug lay in front of a long, black sofa. No TV. Rain beat against a bay window, sounding like a tribal drum.

Eames hated to be rough, but panic drove him. He half-dragged Arthur to the bathroom, which was large, with bright lights. He let him sink onto the closed toilet seat.

"Arthur, are you here with me? Can you understand?"

"Understand Mr. Eames but still dreaming. I can't see." He still hadn't caught his breath.

"Arthur, SomniCore had you for over a day. They probably put you under many times and OD'ed you on Somnovril. Do you understand that?"

"I can't be sure."

"I know you can't. But please, please do me the favor of playing along until I can get you back to Dom and Mal."

"Don't take me to them. If we're awake we'll lead them.... Asleep, they'll extract the location from me. Either way."

Eames kneeled in front of Arthur and put his hands on either side of his face. "You're right on both counts. But even so, I am asking you to trust me. I've got a chemist coming in, he'll be here in a few hours. The drugs they gave you have done this to you, Arthur. My chemist will help you. If you can please hold out a little longer. Mal will murder me if you don't."

Arthur's eyes searched for something they couldn't find: the source of Eames's voice. "I'll give you, if the men don't come back, if you can help me, until then."

"Well Arthur, I'm not exactly sure what that means, but I'll take it."

"May I have water?"

The polite tone heart his ears, and his heart, a little. "Yes, of course."

He kept one hand on Arthur's knee as he reached across to the sink and rinsed a bathroom cup, before filling it with water. He took Arthur's hands and placed the cup into them. The slat of wood was still bound to Arthur's arm. 

"You might, of course, throw this back up."

Arthur drank madly and asked for more.

"After I get this thing off your arm and get you cleaned up. May I?"

"It's broken, even in a dream bones break. But I've had worse, broken arm nothing you can do, ice."

Eames took his arm gently and looked it over. It was swollen all over, even around the duct tape that held the arm of the chair to it. 

"I'm going to cut the tape off you, Arthur. Please be still."

Eames took the small first aid kit from under the sink and retrieved the bandage scissors. Arthur's arm jerked and twitched as if he couldn't control his movements. His face was flushed, but he was shivering.

"Will I see?"

"Likely," Eames said. "I've seen this before with Somnovril. Try to be still for a moment."

Eames saw to him as well as he could. He cleaned his face with wet towels, stripped him of his shirt, wiped the blood from his chest and back, and as gently as possible, prodded the thin bones of his forearm. It wasn't a bad break; no compound fractures, but it had to hurt like hell. The swelling looked awful but there was nothing to do about it. Arthur allowed him to do all of this, or maybe it was shock that kept him quiet.

Arthur swayed, and after a while could no longer sit up. Eames helped him onto the floor; there was nowhere else to go. He gave Arthur water and held his head over the toilet when he threw it back up, held his soaked hair off his forehead.

"I could have stopped it, I tried to but it was too late," Arthur said. "Only knowing all the facts will save your life. Knowledge is the power of life and death. She felt cold, her whole body. I thought I was holding all the cards. Oh, Mal, vous m'avez choisi, merci, merci." 

He was sitting on the bathroom floor as Eames held him, head pillowed against Eames's arm so he wouldn't have to rest it against the toilet. He stared into space, eyes bloodshot and face flushed. "Je n'ai pas tué son, I moved her because I didn't know what else to do." 

Eames listened, feeling intrusive and not saying a word, until he felt tears against his arm. 

He stroked Arthur's hair with his free hand. "That's all right," he said. "You did the right thing." He had no idea what Arthur was talking about and didn't need to know.

"J'ai pensé que je pouvais, I thought I could, I thought ... I wanted to help. It was too late."

"That's all right," Eames said. "It's all right, Arthur."

Arthur sat up and shifted towards Eames, staring somewhere over his head. "Dom? Dom?" His hands reached out.

"Eames," he corrected gently, taking Arthur's wrists and easing his hands back down.

"Am I awake? Why can't I see?"

"You're awake. You've been poisoned. I'm waiting for my chemist because I think he can help us."

"Mr. Eames?"

"Yes," he answered, relieved and feeling suddenly less alone. His legs were cramping beneath him from keeping them bent for so long, but he didn't want to move and break the spell. In that moment, Arthur was with him. "Right here. We're awake."

"May I touch you?"

Eames swallowed, his throat dry. He remembered asking Arthur the same thing on the day they'd met, after the compound had made him sick. Feeling disoriented, unsure if he was awake. That old Dreamcade trick.

"Yes, of course." He caught Arthur's shaking hand and laid it against his face.

His touch was light, almost fragile. He ran his fingers across Eames's forehead, and then carefully down the slope of his nose. 

"Yes, that's you," he said.

Eames smiled. Most people remembered him by his lips and crooked teeth. 

"I memorized you on the train," Arthur said. "Your cards and questions."

"Yes."

His fingers traveled lower, finally touching his mouth. Then he nodded, satisfied. Something flickered to life in his eyes, and for a brief moment, Eames thought maybe he'd seen something. He waved his hand in front of Arthur's eyes.

"Nope, still blind," Arthur said.

"Then how are you seeing my hand?"

"I can't. I feel it. Your hands are hot."

Eames laid his palm against Arthur's forehead. "You're still burning. Think you could keep down some water?" 

"Would love to try."

Eames filled the cup again and Arthur drank slowly. He eventually did throw it back up. And then he went back to incoherent word-salad and memories. Eames shifted to get comfortable, and waited it out.

Arthur remained compliant, and babbled at no one until his throat ran dry. Then he rasped a few more thoughts until he slumped forward, and Eames caught him, a heap of dry, hot limbs. 

He thought it safe to let him lie down on a bed, as long as he didn't leave him for a moment to choke on his own vomit. His legs protested as he hauled Arthur to his feet. Arthur panicked and tried to pull away from him.

"Still Eames," he said, and Arthur fell against him. Eames slipped an arm around his waist and led him to the bedroom. Arthur made it as far as the door before Eames had to actually lift him.

He was lying him down onto the bed when Yusuf finally arrived.

** ** ** ** 

"What a dirty compound," Yusuf said, opening one of Arthur's eyes and shining a light into it. "What do they hope to extract, using this kind of nonsense?"

Eames sighed and sat back in his chair beside the bed. He felt exhausted, but there was more to do before he could rest. "Their methods of extraction lack the finesse of, say, the Cobbs."

"The Cobbs?" Yusuf said, as he efficiently set up an IV stand next to the bed. "It amazes me, Mr. Eames, that you'd choose to work with their team. At one time you would do everything to overthrow them."

"You might have noticed that the climate or dreaming is changing. We must leave rivalries behind and forge new teams."

"I came back in hopes of legitimately using my compounds. But instead I find the Den raided, colleagues locked up, on the run or just plain disappeared." He slipped the IV needle into Arthur's wrist. "And I find Thomas Eames in the company of the Cobbs' point man: Yes, I fully understand the change. It's why I've got to leave England."

"We've all got to leave. The Cobbs have bucked the system and are no longer safe. This young man left a trail of bodies in SomniCore's security building. Whatever he and the Cobbs built for themselves is now shot to hell."

"Like everything else that we've all built. I came here today for you, Mr. Eames, because we both know something of loyalty. We almost burned together. But I'm leaving again soon."

"I expect I'll be close behind you." Regret filled him, not just for leaving England and going on the run—he knew "on the run" quite well—but because the Camelot of dreaming was crumbling beneath them. "I'll suggest the same to the Cobbs, although... Well. Yusuf, I need one more favor."

"Of course you do," Yusuf said. He plunged a syringe of clear fluid into the IV line, fiddled with the stand, checked the bag.

"If you could stay and watch him for another hour or so? I've got to make a call from a pay phone."

"For God's sake, use the landline, Eames, they won't trace this one. No one knows of it."

"But the Cobbs won't pick up unless they know the number. This number was given to me so I've just got to make a run to the phone and let them know their man is alive, and that they should prepare to run. And then I've got a bit of work to do at my office."

Yusuf pulled a chair beside the bed where Arthur lay. "I think I can give you a few more hours," he said. 

** ** ** ** **

In Yusuf's overcoat and a nondescript hat with the brim pulled down, Eames made his way casually to the pay phone where he was to call the Cobbs. Arthur's mysterious telephone connection had texted him a message that simply read "Sainsburys, Heyford Hill." He reached the phone and dialed the number that the same mystery connection had texted him, which was different from the number he'd previously used to reach the Cobbs.

"Arthur?" Mal asked as soon as she picked up.

"No, Mrs. Cobb, it's Eames. Listen, I've got Arthur, he's with me..."

"Put him on."

"He's not _currently_ with me, let me tell you the short version..."

"Is he all right? Did you leave him alone?"

"He's all right; he's getting private medical treatment; I ask that you trust me, though I know it's a lot to ask of someone you've just met."

"How bad is he?" And in the background Eames heard Dom Cobb say, "Jesus Christ, Mal, what happened, is Arthur all right?"

"I think he will be," Eames said. "Please tell Mr. Cobb before you both have an aneurism." He heard her move her mouth away from the phone and repeat Eames's words to Cobb. 

"What became of him?" she asked.

"SomniCore took him, and tried to extract from him information about the two of you, and likely about me, too. They used him quite badly, overdosing him on Somnovril."

"I'm going to murder someone," Mal said. And, in the background, Dom: "Mal, please..."

"So right now my chemist is working on restoring him to sense; my chemist is the best there is in the field, so I'm confident. Mrs. Cobb, what I really need to tell you is that you need to leave the country at once. All of you."

"Dominic, pack Arthur's room up," she said, away from the phone. And then, to Eames, "Go on."

"Arthur left a trail of destruction as he tried to make his escape. By the time I'd gotten there he had taken out a lot of SomniCore security. As you probably know, he is not to be fucked with, apparently. He is quite something, just as you said. But SomniCore won't be as impressed. They wanted you before this, but now the search is really on. They're not going to let you go."

"Well, we're not going without Arthur. And we'd like you, too, Mr. Eames."

"Arthur I will deliver to you the moment he's able to get out of bed. I'll probably disappear for a few months before resurfacing and contacting you. I'm sorry to run out like this."

"Do what you've got to do," she said, not without kindness.

"I've got a landline where we're at; the name that comes up will be _Sahir_ , all right? Pick up when you see it? Arthur was speaking earlier and he wants to hear your voice."

She was silent for a moment, as if collecting herself. "Yes, of course. Mr. Eames, thank you. Get back to him, if you please."

"Goodbye Mrs. Cobb." Eames hung up, and made his way by taxicab to his private office.

He had some forging to do.

** ** ** **

Arthur lay in the desert of his mind, hot and dry, nothing but sky above him. It was too bright, nearly white, and glaring. The desert shifted beneath him, rocking and shaking. He couldn't move, and was alone but for the voice that occasionally broke the silence.

It was a kind voice, gentle, though it didn't address him as it faded in and out. At least he didn't think so.

"...to adjust your IV line if you don't mind...refill this for you...just checking your eyes again..." 

It was all nonsense, but at least it was unthreatening nonsense.

"...if I had a telly to put on...should be back soon...and make sure you pee a lot when you're able..."

Frustrating, to not know who it was or what he was talking about. But he liked the accent; some elegant combination of Indian and English, aristocratic and educated. Arthur liked the sound of the T's, a little over-pronounced. He wished he could grab onto that voice and follow it out of the desert. 

But he could not, and soon the relative peace was disturbed by the sound of a door closing. Arthur had no idea which door this could be, since was in the desert.

"Ah, welcome back," said the elegant voice. "Did all go well?"

"Well as I could manage," answered a darker voice, this one with edges that were not so smooth.

 _Eames._

He tried to move, to look around and lay eyes on the source of this voice, but couldn't find the door.

"How is he?" Eames asked. 

"Better than one might expect, I suppose," answered Elegant Voice. "I doubt he can see yet, though I believe he will once the toxin is flushed out. The treatment for this is symptomatic. I saw it a lot when SomniCore started pedaling their hideous wares and people dreamed for days at a time under them. Unconscionable, really."

"Yeah, well, I think they proved that to us a few times over," Eames said. "Look, I can't thank you enough, can I?"

"You can, Mr. Eames, and I'm sure you will."

"If you've got to flee, I've got a passport for you."

"Much appreciated."

"Tell me what to do for Arthur before you go."

On hearing his name, finally, he reached out his hand into the brittle desert sky. He couldn't see them, but maybe they could see him. His heart beat a little faster. 

"Oh, hey," Eames said, in a different tone. 

A hand took hold of his, but Arthur didn't know how that could be; he could see no other hand beside his own, as if Eames had reached across a different reality.

"All right there, Arthur?"

"I can't see. I can't see you," he tried to say. But his tongue refused to follow orders and the words came out slurred.

"Ah, but this awareness is a good sign," said Elegant Voice. "The best thing to do is remain calm, Arthur. And be patient."

"Thank you, Yusuf," Eames said, presumably to Elegant Voice.

_Yusuf, that's his name – remember it; he helped you._

"Thanks," Arthur repeated.

"Yes, you're quite welcome, Arthur. Perhaps I'll see you again in better times. Well then. Good luck to you. To you both. Eames, you will be in contact with me when you're ready?"

"Yes, shortly. Yusuf, thank you."

"Take care of yourselves."

Arthur heard a door close again.

"Eames," he said. "I'm in the desert. Can you bring me water?"

"The desert? Yes, be still a moment and I'll get you some."

The room felt suddenly empty. And then Eames returned, and his hands were on him again, pulling him up. One hand came up behind his head, the other pressed something cold to his lips. He drank, though Eames told him "Slowly, slowly."

"I can follow you," Arthur said, when he had swallowed the last bit of water. "I can follow your voice."

"I don't understand what you..."

"If you speak."

"You want me to speak?"

"Yes. Please."

"Yes, I suppose that's a request I can easily fulfill. All day, if I must." There was a hint of humor to the voice, something light and self-deprecating. 

"Did I ever tell you about my sister?" Eames began. "She was quite a hardcase and a nutter."

Arthur felt himself stand up in the dream. The desert still moved under his feet, but at least he was on them. A landscape sprang up around him: hills, valleys, paths.

Eames spoke, and Arthur realized that the valleys and peaks _were_ his voice. 

The valleys were dark and steep. ( _"...shortly after that, my brother was struck by a train in his car... I found trouble, or perhaps trouble found me? No, I found trouble, let's be clear on that...")_

Peaks were bright, easy to navigate. ( _"I loved that bike more than God and I rode it all over the countryside... They say you haven't lived until you've traveled with the theater, and let me tell you, Arthur, that is the truest thing you've ever heard... So there I was, a woman for the first time in my life, I cannot tell you how shaken I was to be without my penis...")_

There were rhythms that he used as footholds, tones he climbed like vines. Laughter that he drank like water. 

Hours passed. Eames's voice changed over time, became huskier, and Arthur felt gravel under his feet like civilization. 

_"'All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts...'_ " Eames's voice had slipped into a different character; he sounded nothing like himself. And then, " _I've always felt close to that line, as you can imagine..."_

Arthur kept walking, chasing Eames's chameleon colors.

_"'Falling sick on a journey, my dream goes around above withered fields.' That one is Japanese, Arthur, Matsuo Basho; I thought it might suit you tonight. The Japanese have a beautiful way of simplifying thoughts. Listen to this one, Arthur: 'Shadows on the darkness of my heart have left me in confusion; Dream or truth? Let other folk decide.' Narihira. Genius, don't you think?"_

Every time Eames said his name, he turned. And sometimes, caught a glimpse of him among the shadows.

Arthur walked. Eames's voice faded in and out.

…

" _'...once a dream did weave a shade o'er my angel-guarded bed...'_

_...Blake, Arthur, that one's from memory, you ought to be impressed..._

_'…In visions of the dark night , I have dreamed of joy departed...'_

_Everyone should memorize Poe, Arthur. I've always thought so._

_'… Safe may we sleep beneath thy care, though banish'd, outcast and reviled...'_

_Now I'll bet you didn't know that I could sing, did you, Arthur? Are you surprised? Well you should be; I don't do it often. I've never been a religious man, but the Ave Maria made me think of Mal, don't you agree? And I thought that if you imagined her, you might open your eyes. No? Not yet?_

Arthur thought he saw the shape of Mal, and he turned to follow her through the forest that Eames wove with his voice. The forest soon gave way to a street.

_'...Penny Lane there is a fireman with an hourglass, and in his pocket is a portrait of the Queen...'_

_'With a rebel yell! She cried more, more, more...!'_

_I'm sorry, I'm running out of songs. I'm afraid I don't know any Megadeth, either. I'll just grab a book off the shelf, shall I?"_

...

And the streets gave way to wild, lush moors. 

_"'...You are welcome to torture me to death for your amusement, only allow me to amuse myself a little in the same style, and refrain from insult as much as you are able. Having levelled my palace, don't erect a hovel and complacently admire your own charity in giving me that for a home....'_

Arthur ran now, sure that this wild place led somewhere. Sure that he was close to the source of the voice. That he could find the end of this maze, and when he did, he would know what to do.

"... _'I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always — take any form, drive me mad!'_

The moor ended in a jagged cliff, where the sea raged below. When Arthur turned to look behind him, there was nothing. The forest, the streets, the moors, they were all gone. Just the blackness of being blind. He looked back down to the sea.

There was only one place to go.

 _Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God, it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life; I cannot live without my soul...'_ "

Arthur jumped.

** ** ** **


	5. Chapter 5

** ** ** **

"He dashed his head against the knotted trunk, and..."

Arthur sat up, startling Eames so badly that he nearly dropped the book. He looked like he'd risen from the grave; the effect was unsettling.

"Jesus, I almost wet myself. Well, thank goodness you're up, Arthur. Can you..."

Eames left the chair and went to the edge of the bed, waving his hand in front of Arthur's eyes. Arthur grabbed his wrist and released the breath he'd been holding. Then he turned his eyes to Eames's face, his eyes searching. Seeing.

Eames smiled. "Ah. So finally..."

And then Arthur released his wrist, and instead planted his entire hand over Eames's face, clumsily feeling every contour. His hand was hot and dry.

"We've got to find a better way to test wakefulness," Eames said, muffled.

Arthur ran his finger down the slope of Eames's nose.

"I'm awake?" he said.

"Yes, finally. Your eyes?"

"Blurry, but working." He coughed, a terrible sound that shook his entire frame. "Water?"

"Yes, just a moment."

Eames went into the kitchen, the blood returning to his legs. He felt exhausted, glad it was over. He could call Mal now and tell her where to meet them. Maybe she'd be grateful; or at least not seething about murder. He wanted to her her sounding happy. He barely knew the woman but he felt her loveliness, the way he deeply felt all things lovely and intriguing.

And, Christ, then they'd be running again. Probably for a long time.

But not yet. Not just yet. 

From the filter in the fridge he filled two glasses of cold water. His own throat was dry and raw, his voice worn to almost nothing.

When he returned, Arthur was sitting up, huddled into a blanket, shivering and holding the book Eames had been reading. "You're a literature man," Arthur said.

"Occasionally. That one's a favorite." He handed Arthur the glass, and drank his own water. It burned his raw throat. He was all talked out.

"How bad was I?" Arthur asked, all business again. With the hand that wasn't holding the book, he prodded his fractured arm. It was swollen in two places, the skin a mottled purple.

"Quite bad for a few hours; you gave me a scare. I thought Mal would be coming to kill me."

"None of it was your fault," Arthur said. "I was careless. A bunch of men jumped me and I knew right away who they were and what was going on, but I couldn't stop them. They must have knocked me out because I couldn't remember how I'd gotten there."

"Well, you certainly did a good job of handling yourself after the fact."

Arthur finished the water and pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders. "Maybe. I don't remember."

"Take my word. You left a trail of broken bodies, Arthur. You're not safe here anymore. None of us are."

"Still. I know what the words 'he's not worth it' mean when combined with the barrel of a gun shoved into the back of my skull. You saved my ass." There was something surly in his voice; maybe some kind of resentment. Arthur clearly wished he could have saved his own ass. "And then you did all of this." He gestured around the room, _all of this_ indicating what he couldn't put into words. "For me," he added in a whisper.

"Arthur, you're a valuable associate and I could not afford losing you. Add to that the fact that Mal and Dom would be lost without you and would never forgive me. And the Cobbs have become extremely important to dreams."

Arthur opened his mouth to speak again, but Eames held up his hand, cutting him off.

"Add to that the fact that I _like_ you, Arthur, and would not like to be rid of you. Since meeting you, I can't fathom how we haven't been on the same team for years. Without having known your name, I knew that someone at SomniCore was my most worthy adversary, and I could at least respect that. We are both too good to be going against each other. Take from that what you will."

Arthur seemed to take a moment to consider that. "Well. We're done with SomniCore and you're done with going against us, so. And hey. I owe you."

"I'm sure that at some point you'll come through for me even before I realize I'm in trouble. That's how you work, isn't it? But in the meantime, forget about it."

Arthur nodded, his head bowed over the book. Then he asked, "May I use your shower?"

"It's not mine, but you're welcome to it. I'm sorry to say that your clothes are beyond repair. You may borrow the ones in the closet, though they'll be too big for you. When you're ready, call the Cobbs from the landline; they know to pick up from this number. We'll figure out a place to meet up with them. And then I'm afraid we'll all be on the next flights out of England."

"Sounds about right," Arthur said. He swung his legs over the bed with the blanket still wrapped around him and stood up on shaky legs.

Eames indicated the hall where the bathroom was. He knew better than to offer Arthur any further help. He would shake the lingering sickness off, and would accept no further weakness from himself.

Still, Eames listened as the water started running, and listened fifteen minutes later as it turned off. Assured that Arthur was still vertical, he stripped the sheets off the bed and returned the book to its place on the shelf.

Arthur came out a few minutes later, dressed in Yusuf's clothes which were indeed too big for him. He made it into the living room before sinking onto the couch, trying to make it look purposeful. He still looked very pale; Eames pitied him having to fly while feeling like this, but he knew better than to say so.

He brought Arthur more water. "The more you drink, the faster it will get out of your system. You're dehydrated."

"Thanks," Arthur said. He drained the glass. "Mr. Eames, did I say anything while I was out?"

"A few things, but nothing I really made sense of. You spoke of Mal and Dom quite a bit."

"Well, I know that you... I mean, I realize that I owe you. And it's not much but I know it's something you wanted. My real name? It's--"

"It's Arthur," Eames said. "I've thought about it and you're quite right. Just as I'm no longer Mr. Bishop who worked against you, and that name means nothing to me. Arthur is who you are."

Arthur looked up at him, surprised.

"Oh, except in this case." Eames picked up a stack of passports from the desk beside the sofa, and flipped through them. "Ah, here we are. This is your identity until you're out of the country." He tossed the passport onto Arthur's lap.

Arthur opened it. "Edward Worthington? Why'd you give me such a stuck up name?" Then, frowning, he looked up at Eames. "Where did you get this?"

"I forged it, of course. All of them. I did some searching of my own and retrieved your passport photos." He held up three more, for Dom, Mal and Mr. Miles, each with different names on them. His own was already packed and ready to go. He saw Arthur's surprise and it took him a moment to figure it out. "You thought I was just a dream-forger?" 

"Well...yeah."

"Arthur, I can forge nearly anything. If I wasn't able to, there's no way I could have stayed ahead of you all of those years. Give yourself a little more credit. Anything less, and you would have caught me."

"I should have known."

"Well, give yourself _more_ credit, darling, but not too much. No one has ever caught me. But if it makes you feel any better, you came the closest." 

Arthur smiled, a half-smile mixed with an annoyed frown, and tucked the passport into the borrowed pocket. Finally the smile won out and he laughed quietly. "Well, shit."

Then he leaned over to the coffee table and picked up the phone to call Mal.

Eames began cleaning up for their departure.

** ** **

 

Arthur was quiet on the car ride to the meeting place, huddled into Yusuf's coat, breathing in through the nose, out through the mouth. The sight of him almost made Eames feel car-sick. He hated how ill he looked and pitied him for having to fly while feeling like this. Eames kept quiet, in case Arthur wanted to sleep.

He'd had to hustle them both out of Yusuf's house after cleaning up and wiping down as quickly as he could. Arthur had done his share, bleaching the bathroom (the fumes probably had gotten to him too) and wiping everything he'd touched, for fingerprints. Eames had taken care of the lab in the basement as well as he could, but there was no way to erase all the evidence of the dream-chemicals. He'd had the landline disconnected but doubted that would be enough, if they were ever really traced there. Yusuf had used his real name. He'd been at that flat since back before the playing ground had shifted, when dreamers and their jobs had been relatively safe.

He resented this change; and part of him resented that it drove him to the Cobbs and their team, now that he'd had a chance to think about it some. He liked them. Liked the young man beside him in the car, too. But it was unfair, how it hadn't been his decision, because Eames liked options, and lately he hadn't any.

Not the Cobbs' fault. And not Arthur's either. They'd been naïve, working under SomniCore. Eames had made the decision to work privately, protecting some of his rights, forfeiting others.

He also knew that forced loyalty shifts had a way of becoming uncomfortable. He wondered if the Cobbs would ever resent having to become criminals – now that they were.

Eames glanced again at Arthur. Would he hate his new life on the wrong side of the law? Would he blame him? His options had been limited, too. 

Eames reached his hand into his carry-on and pulled out a bottle of water.

"Arthur," he said, nudging his good arm with the bottle.

"I'm all right, thanks," Arthur answered, without opening his eyes. The streetlights played over his features: light and then shadow, light and then shadow.

"It'll do you good to flush it out of your system."

Arthur humored him and took the bottle, eyes still shut. Dark smudges lined his eyes, his lips looked pale. Yet he still looked somewhat pristine in a way that Eames knew he'd never looked in his own life, at least not awake. 

"You can crawl into the back and sleep if you'd like."

Arthur took a deep breath. "Can we stop somewhere real quick? I need to pee. And possibly vomit again. Like maybe now."

Eames pulled the car to the side of the road, and didn't dare offer to help Arthur out of the car. He was too brittle like this, showing weakness when he wanted so badly not to.

So he waited in the car and switched on the radio. They still had time before they got to the meeting place.

** ** ** **

Arthur knew that it wasn't Eames's fault the way the car jostled around on the road. And when he took that turn off the exit, making Arthur's head spin, he wondered if he'd make it to the rest area or whatever the hell Eames had in mind to meet up with Mal and Dom. 

God, he hated this. Hated more than anything for someone to see him like this; especially the man he'd tracked for so long, resented for so damn long too. He wondered what Eames thought: _This little weakling was my worst enemy?_ He still feared that he'd said more than Eames had told him, while he was babbling and incoherent. 

The car stopped and Arthur opened his eyes, finally. It was still raining as he gazed out to the parking lot. Air. Fresh air would help a lot, and maybe some food. 

Eames was on his way to the other side of the car to open the door and maybe even offer to help him. Arthur hurried his ass up, opened the door himself and got to his feet. 

"I'm all right, thanks," he said, before Eames even offered. "Just chilly."

"Of course. If you'd like to throw up some more, there are bushes over there."

"I think I'm good."

"Arthur. You've been poisoned, you know, so it's quite all right to be ill."

"Thanks for your permission," Arthur said, searching for refuge in snark. 

"Come inside and we'll get some food. This is our meeting place. The sooner we're off British soil, the better." He began walking toward the small, lonely diner in the distance.

"Yes," Arthur said, following. "But on the other hand, we don't want to hang around Heathrow longer than necessary, either. They're more likely to be on the lookout for us there than here in the middle of nowhere."

"Middle of nowhere? Arthur, I'll have you know I did some growing up around here."

Arthur looked around at the mostly empty parking lot and sad, trashy diner. He could hardly reconcile this with "England" as he had imagined it before coming here. Then he thought of Eames, younger and trying to make his way into the business. "Did you live around here?"

Eames laughed. "You could say that, I suppose. It was warm in the back of the diner in the winter."

Arthur looked at Eames so quickly that it made his head ache. "You were... What, homeless or something?"

"By choice. I thought it would be romantic of me to be a street urchin. So I would sleep here at night, which worked out nicely, until I decided to try to rob them. Stupid of me, actually. But you must have already known that?"

Arthur shook his head. "My research of you doesn't go that far back, I guess. I knew you'd done a little time here and there for some small things. You must have been young."

"Yes, I was a minor."

Arthur tried to picture Eames at 15 or 16, dirty and homeless and violent. He thought maybe he'd had long hair back then. He'd only become aware of Eames by the time he was into his twenties and had moved onto larger crimes, those for which no law could catch him. But Arthur had always tracked him at SomniCore's request when Eames's criminal activity led him into independent dreaming.

All those years of trying to keep up with him under his many different aliases, Arthur had seen pictures of him but had somehow never quite _seen_ him.

"You had money," Arthur said. "You still have money. Why this?"

"Because, Arthur, you can't buy freedom. That's what I've been trying to tell you, all these years before we even met. You knew who I was; you knew what I did, and that I didn't want to be held under by some big corporation. It's _dreams_ Arthur. It's a person's mind, their consciousness. Soul, if you want. How can anyone be allowed to control who dreams what? How can it be bought, sold and regulated?"

"But you did criminal things, Mr. Eames. You went into the minds of others, and stole from them. That's not something a person does on principal."

"Why then, Arthur? Why do you think would I do such a thing, and take such risks?"

Arthur thought about it, but had no answer. Why was Eames asking him this? They got to the diner and Eames held the door open for him. Once he smelled food, he realized he could eat. They seated themselves, and as the diner was nearly empty, a waitress came over directly, bringing water. Arthur asked for a salad. Eames smiled, and asked for a sandwich. Arthur thought about that for a moment before he remembered seeing Eames in the Oxford cafe that first day. So Eames liked cycles, it appeared.

In the bright overhead lights, Arthur looked at the man across from him. It was a face he felt like he was finally becoming familiar with. 

"I don't know why you did it," Arthur finally said. "I guess that's why I tracked you. I didn't understand."

"Arthur, you may as well ask yourself why you worked for a corporation that you knew was rotten. Perhaps we both went to the wrong extremes. If there's a place to meet in the middle, the entire dreaming community needs to start searching for it."

"The way it looks right now, the entire dreaming community is a sinking ship; I don't think there will be a middle ground."

"Then we'll have to create one, Arthur. I'm not the sort of man who goes down with the ship."

The waitress brought over a pre-made salad, and a wrapped deli sandwich. Hardly the fare they'd eaten the first day, but Eames seemed satisfied. They ate in silence for a while, while Arthur's body figured out what to do with nourishment again. He felt a little stronger.

The bell on the door jingled, and even though Arthur had expected Mal and Dom, he still felt a strange sort of surprise, and maybe even nervousness, about seeing them. About them seeing him. And, oddly, about what it would change about the dynamic between him and the man across from him.

"Arthur," Dom said when he saw them.

Mal covered her mouth with both her hands.

** ** ** **

When Cobb swept Arthur into a bear-hug, much to the surprise of the waitress, Eames very nearly pulled him away, remembering Arthur's fractured arm.

But Arthur took it like a man, even with the injured arm crushed against his chest.

"We thought..." Cobb began, but didn't say it. His hand gripped at the back of the coat Arthur was wearing.

"I'm okay," Arthur said. 

Eames hung back and stuck his hands into his pockets, not wanting to intrude on what was obviously a family-like reunion after a literal near-death. 

Cobb backed off and Mal took Arthur's face in her hands. "Are you very much all right, darling?" she asked.

"Very much," Arthur assured her. And Eames saw it again: that genuine smile, the one that crinkled his youthful eyes and still managed to make him look like a twelve year old. Something tightened in his chest and he couldn't quite name it. He knew he had a crush, if you could call it that at his age. It was somehow on the both of them, or all of them. He felt fascinated by Mal, and how she could be in love with that husband of hers and still have enough room in her heart for this deadly young man with the hooded dark eyes.

And even underneath what he was coming to know as respect, he sort of resented them, too. Because now the Cobbs would go their own way, and they would take young Mr. Arceneau with them; young Arthur of the Sweater Vest, Arthur in a fedora on a rainy day, Arthur breaking a man's hand without breaking a sweat, Arthur taking on all of SomniCore, blind, drugged, and with a broken arm. Arthur who had rested his feverish head on his arm while walking through his own dark past. Arthur who had chased him for years, and now the chase was over.

Mal let go of her boy and approached Eames. Her eyes were gleaming, so goddamn blue he could hardly think. He didn't know what to say to her; her beauty undid him.

She put her hands on his face like she had done to Arthur, and then kissed first one cheek, then the other. She smelled like rain and her wool coat. Her nails were sharp, and he thought of tiny knives on her fingertips, and remembered her seething, _I will murder someone._

"Thank you, thank you, Mr. Eames," she said.

"No, not at all," he murmured. "Let me tell you. Arthur handled himself quite amazingly. He is, as you said, quite something."

"We know that," she said. She spoke quietly, while Arthur was busy talking to Cobb. "But he is not made out of metal, also. And you got there in enough time to save him. So you've retrieved something valuable for Dom and I. Arthur is..." She searched his eyes for one uncomfortable moment, as if looking for the truth there that she had spotted. But no one hid that particular commodity better than he. 

"He's the best there is," Eames said, all professional respect. "I knew that even when he was..."

"Yes, on the other side or your interests," she finished. "Come with us, Mr. Eames. We're going stateside where Dom has family. You'll be safe. We need a team."

"As tempting as that is," he said, "it's safer for now if we travel alone. You'll need to separate. Take Arthur with you, have Mr. Cobb go on a different flight: the two of you are known to travel together. But you also shouldn't be alone, and neither should Arthur."

She bit her lip and frowned. "And you, Mr. Eames?"

"Yes," Dom said, now once again business. He approached Eames, and Arthur took his place behind him, as if that was his station in life. "We'd love to have you with us."

"Not just yet," Eames said, looking at Arthur over Cobb's shoulder. "I've got some ends to tie up. A few names to shut down, some offices that need cleaning here and abroad."

"Be careful," Cobb said, frowning and looking not at all happy. "Mr. Eames, we sought you out for a reason. We could really use your services."

"And you will," Eames said. "I've just got to go under for a few months."

Again he looked at Arthur, who didn't react. Although Eames had come to know that Arthur was good at hiding things, too. He just didn't know what he was hiding.

"How will we contact you?" Cobb asked.

That was a good question. They could hardly exchange phone numbers now that they'd have to change all their contact info. 

"Mr. Eames," Arthur said, "do you still have my phone?"

Eames had to think for a moment. "Oh! Your phone, yes, of course." He reached into his bag, digging around for the stolen phone until his hand closed around it. He held it out toward Arthur.

"Keep it. I'll have the name and number changed once I'm stateside, and then I'll contact—I'll have Dom contact you."

"Right." Eames said, gripping the phone. "Good idea. Thanks."

Mal looked to Arthur, to Eames, and back to Arthur as if she was trying to figure something out. Perhaps she did, because she took hold of Cobb's hand and tugged it. He turned to her, blatant, questioning. Mal ignored his look. Eames wished she'd let him in on whatever she thought was happening, because he felt very confused. 

"Dom, buy me a cup of ginger tea?" Mal said, pulling her husband by the arm towards the tiny bar where a man was wiping down the counter. 

"Huh? Oh. Sure, sweetheart." He followed her, one big helpless smile.

Arthur and Eames were left in the middle of the diner, looking at each other. 

"Umm," Arthur said, "there are some good songs on there, if you want."

Eames laughed a little. "Megadeth, I know."

"Well, aside from that. There's some cool playlists."

"Thank you, Arthur."

"Yeah. You have the password, I assume." His voice sounded a little sharp, as if it had just occurred to him _how_ Eames had found him. Eames had cracked his code, for once.

"Oh, yes. Une ame eveillee."

"Right. ' _L'espoir est le rêve d'une âme éveillée,_ '" Arthur said perfectly. "Hope is the dream of a soul awake. Mal actually has that tattooed on her ankle."

Eames's jaw dropped. _Mal with a tattoo, oh dear sweet Jesus._

"I know," Arthur said, with a small laugh. "You didn't see mine?"

Eames's jaw dropped another inch. He couldn't tell if Arthur was kidding or not. He'd had the man's shirt off, had him down to underwear. He would have seen it. Surely. If it was anywhere above the waist.

Arthur did not deign to say if he was joking or not. "So," he said instead, "I'm really bad at this, but thank you."

"You're not bad at it at all," Eames said. "And you've really nothing to thank me for."

"Okay, and you're bad at it, too. I will save your ass in return one day."

"I have no doubt."

The Cobbs made their way back over to them, Mal sipping her tea. She put her free hand on Arthur's arm. "We've got to go, darling. Papa's just called from France." She looked at Eames. "SomniCore's made announcements to search for us, he says."

"Okay, well no worries, Mrs. Cobb," Eames said. "I've booked flights for the Cobbs and Arthur Arceneau out of the country for tomorrow. But your flights are tonight." He handed them their fake passports.

"Brilliant," Cobb said, opening his and checking the picture, the stamps, everything. "Wow. We could really use you, Eames. I mean that."

"I'm flattered. And I will be around again soon."

"Please do," Mal said. She kissed him again on the cheek. Dom Cobb shook his hand. 

Arthur held out his hand—the one he wasn't pressing to his chest to keep still—and Eames took it. Firm, dry, chilly.

"I'll call you when the dust settles," Arthur said. "I'm the only one who will have the number, so it shouldn't even ring until then."

"I'll keep it on me at all times," Eames said, and he meant it.

"Take care of yourself, Mr. Eames."

"Yes, please be careful," Mal said.

"And you. And congratulations again."

Dom slipped his arm around his wife's waist and, with a nod, headed for the door. Arthur once again took his place at Dom's back. Mal turned around and winked at Eames.

Arthur turned and nodded, a slight, noble inclination of his head to indicate acknowledgement or everything that had happened, and perhaps might happen. As if he were tipping a hat that wasn't there. Then he turned away, and Eames held on to the image of his dark eyes and thought, _Arthur in a fedora on a rainy day._

He swore to see that again someday.

 

\--End


End file.
